


The Barbarian Prince 1/7

by Syls Darkplace (sylsdarkplace)



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, M/M, Sexual Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-10
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 16:50:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1695482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylsdarkplace/pseuds/Syls%20Darkplace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared, the son of a nomadic chieftain, is taken as a slave by the boy king of a ‘civilized’ nation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’d like to thank my darling betas [meus_venator](http://meus-venator.livejournal.com/) and [anniespinkhouse](http://anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com/) for all their feedback and support. Any mistakes are mine.

Jared should be dead. There would be honor in death on the battlefield, where there was none in this death march – herded like cattle for leagues through blistering heat and cold rain – in watching his people die of infected wounds, pneumonia or exposure. He had failed them, and he deserved this punishment, the indignity, the shame. The ancestors would not allow him to join them. He understood that.

His people, the Wabikan, were peaceful nomads who hunted and tended their herds always seeking new pastures but never a battle. Not that they couldn’t defend themselves when needed. They could, and did. But despite their fearless horses and skill with a bow and spear, they were no match for the steel and sheer numbers of the Meirryn troops from the north that fell upon them like wolves upon the fold.

The Meirryn were pale with golden or coppery hair. Unlike Jared’s people who wore little more than boots and a wrap of cloth, the pale ones were covered toe to neck in leather and cloth. Their horses even were dressed in leather face coverings and colorful braids in their manes and tails.

It wasn’t the first battle that Jared had led in defense of his clan. There had been many in is twenty-two years. Since he’d been eighteen, he’d led a smaller band of his people on hunting forays while his father Garran reigned as chieftain over the main tribe. He knew that it was unlikely now that he’d ever see his family again, and he begged forgiveness from the ancestors for failing his father and his people.

While Jared wanted to hate the Meirryn troops for attacking his hunting party, he also knew that his father had been taking a risk when he’d instructed Jared to take them as close to the Meirryn villages as he had. The southern borderlands had been much closer to the city of Deile just a generation ago, but the Meirrynites had settled and built villages farther out into forests and grasslands that the Wabikan had been hunting and grazing their animals on from time immemorial. It was only a matter of time before the kind of clash that befell Jared’s hunting party occurred. They had all known it. The Meirrynites were known for fiercely defending their territory, but the Wabikan didn’t own land or respect the claim that other nations had on land. Now they were paying the price.

After weeks of trudging, tied in a long line to other members of his tribe, through sand and mire and bog, they came to Deile, the Meirryn capital, where the townsfolk threw garbage at them and hurled what he was sure were insults in the tongue of the lower classes. He was untied from the others and dragged by two members of the royal guard behind the figure of the general who’d been in charge of the battle. At least he assumed so because he hadn’t seen the king in the midst of the flashing swords, rearing horses, and screaming men. Like Jared, the general was covered in sweat and mud and blood, and the man was clearly used to it as he’d washed only his face and hands since the battle.

Jared had wished over and over that he could wash the blood of his comrades and enemies from his face and arms. Instead, the trip had only added layers of muck. His people were unused to living so far north, and wearing only their customary garb, many had succumbed to the cold, rainy weather over the past few days. Even Jared as big and young and strong as he was felt the affects of the weather. He was weak with it and the lack of food and many miles on foot.

Jared was taken by royal guards and the general into the palace. His feet dragged the ground as he was pulled along over the stone floors. His arms were bound behind his back and his ankles were hobbled. Even if he could break loose, he’d never get away, but maybe he could die trying, he thought. That would be better than the shame of execution, which was surely to be his lot. But realistically, he didn’t have the strength to even try an escape.

Doors were thrown open before them, and the guards dragged Jared forward and pushed him to his knees. He kept his eyes downcast but saw that he was at the foot of a raised dais trimmed in gold. Jared felt a surge of rage and shame at being bound and shoved kneeling at the feet of some foreign king while his people were slaughtered or worse enslaved. This was the ultimate indignity, the ultimate failure.

“This is the barbarian prince?” someone on the dais asked, not in Meirryn as the people in the marketplace had, but in Llyssrene, a language no longer spoken by any nation, but used as a common tongue in royal courts and in international negotiations. As a noble, although a barbarian one others might say, Jared learned it as a child. The voice that spoke from the throne was not that of a wizened king, but the voice of someone very young. Jared looked up then and sitting there was a boy of no more than sixteen, and Jared realized he had seen the king. A vision flashed through his mind of a boy wielding a sword from the back of a black stallion. He remembered the golden hair and flashing eyes, but he’d worn the uniform of a common soldier. There was no indication he was the king. Jared had been within a few feet of him, but had stayed his hand unwilling to kill one so young. He flushed with shame all over again.

The lips of the boy on the throne twisted into a smile. He saw the recognition on Jared’s face and slid from the gilded chair. He stepped from the dais and bent over Jared. He leaned in, and Jared felt the boy’s breath on his neck. He could smell soap and something else, something warm and spicy on the boy’s skin.

“Because you spared my life, I will spare yours, barbarian.”

The boy stood then and went back to the throne where he sprawled with one leg thrown over the arm. Haughty, Jared thought, full of himself, spoiled. Jared wasn’t grateful. He didn’t want his life spared. He deserved death for letting his people down, and he was pretty sure that this arrogant brat knew it.

“Take him away,” the king said. “Wash and prepare him.”

“Your Highness,” the general said. The man graying beard was unkept after the long campaign and march, and his boots and clothes were covered in unspeakable filth.

Other courtiers looked aghast at his impertinence, but the boy king raised his eyebrows. “You have something to say, Morgan?”

The general pulled himself up short. “Only, Sire, that he is quite uncivilized.”

“You think I don’t know that?” the boy grinned, but it was the smile of a snake, Jared thought, or a hyena. It was unnatural that ugly smile on that beautiful face – because he was beautiful. He was all the prettiest things that his people were – pale and freckled, tawny hair kissed golden by the sun, full lips and large green eyes fringed with long lashes.

“Of course, Sire, I spoke out of turn,” Morgan said.

“Indeed, you may go,” the king said.

“Perhaps, My Liege,” an elderly man with a long white beard said, “perhaps the general is right. This beast could be a danger to Your Highness.”

The ugly smile fell from the boy’s face and the emotionless expression was far more chilling. “Do you think so?” the king asked. “Do you think me incapable of defending myself?” He rose from the thrown and pulled a sword from the folds of its drape. “You think I haven’t dealt with treachery before?” He walked toward the old man. “This,” he pointed the sword at Jared, “is an honest threat. I know he would kill me if he could. It is the likes of you,” he swept the sword in an arc to encompass the old man and other counselors and nobles and diplomats, “that are the real threat.” He poked the old man in the chest with the tip of the sword. “What have you to say to that?”

“Forgive me, Your Highness.” The old man’s voice shook as he spoke. “His Royal Nobleness is, of course, more than capable of defending Himself.”

The point of the sword dropped, and the king turned away with a sneer. “Never mind. You were only looking out for my interests.” He dropped back onto the throne. He sighed and gestured at the guards and Jared. “Go on. Do as I say.”

Jared was pulled to his feet by the guards.

“Wait,” the kind said. “What is your name, barbarian?”

Jared’s jaw clenched momentarily at the slur. “Jared.”

“Jared,” he boy repeated. “I am King Jensen, and you belong to me now.” Once again a smile tugged at those lush lips.

~~~

Jared was tied to a rack – some sort of torture device he supposed – although so far he had just been washed and his wounds tended. He’d even been given water and porridge. The guards stood by as the dark-haired man who’d been tending him untied one hand and held the bowl as Jared ate. He wanted with all his being to reject the food, but it had been days since he’d eaten. When he was finished, his wrist was bound back to the horizontal bar that ran behind his shoulders.

The room was filled with light from tall windows on two sides, but they were crossed with bars. So even if Jared could get free from the rack there was no easy way out of the room. He recognized that this was not a torture chamber; not that he’d ever seen one, but he’d heard stories. While there were some strange, even frightening looking, instruments lying about on the counters, there were also shelves of jars and bottles like in an apothecary shop, and the dark haired man with the cornflower blue eyes had tended his wounds. Jared suspected he was a healer, but somehow it didn’t all add up.

The door opened then and the king entered. He looked quite cross with those pretty eyebrows drawn into a scowl and his lips pressed together. The dark haired man looked up with interest.

“I don’t enjoy being summoned by the barber,” the king said.

“Your forgiveness, My Liege, but there’s something I knew you would want to see.” He motioned the king close to Jared. “Observe.”

Both men focused on Jared groin, and he felt heat climbing up his chest and neck into his face. A sheen of sweat was blanketing his chest and back. He didn’t let his gaze follow theirs. He bit back a curse and the king’s hand gripped his cock, and fingernails pushed around and under his foreskin.

“Can it be corrected?” the boy king asked.

“Indeed,” the barber replied. “It can be removed satisfactorily.” Jared jerked in the restraints then.  What the hell were they talking about – corrected, removed? It was just like every other man’s.

“Shh,” the king soothed, and his hand slid up Jared’s chest to his cheek. His hand was small, but it gripped Jared’s jaw with strength. “Misha will take good care of you because you’re mine. He knows the consequences if he doesn’t.” There seemed to be kindness in the jade green eyes that Jared didn’t believe for a moment. The king dropped his hand then and turned to the barber. “And the rest?”

“Ah, let me show you,” the barber turned to a table a few feet away that held what Jared had thought were torture devices. “I think you’ll be quite pleased. It’s a new design. Special for him.”

The boy smiled and licked his lips. “That’s appropriate.”

The barber raised his eyebrows and nodded slightly. “Indeed, Sire, indeed.” The two stood with their backs to Jared, blocking his view of what they were looking at on the table, but he could hear the clink of metal.

“That’s lovely,” the king said.

“I’m glad you approve, Sire.”

The boy’s answering laugh was light but held an undertone of threat that made Jared’s skin crawl. “I bet you are.”

“There are other modifications …”

“No,” the king said, “I think this will do. Get on with it.” The king walked to the door, but stopped short. “And Misha ... do keep the consequences in mind.”

The barber tipped his head and bowed it slightly. “Indeed, My Lord, indeed.” He stood stock still until the king’s footsteps died behind the closed door. “Arrogant little prick,” the barber muttered as he turned toward Jared. “I hate to do this. I truly do, but it must be done.”

He took a bottle down from a shelf and poured a measure of liquid into a cup. He brought it to Jared and held it to his lips. The smell was enough to make him gag. Jared turned his head away.

“I know it smells quite foul and doesn’t taste much better, but believe me when I tell you that you’re going to want its affects,” Misha said.

Jared looked him in the eye then. “What are you going to do to me?”

The barber smiled sadly. “I’m going to make you pretty for the king. It should have been done when you were a baby, but your people truly are barbarians. Now, come on. Drink up. It will help with the pain.”

Jared pressed his lips together.

“Oh gods, you strong warrior types … Look, there’s no shame in avoiding pain. I’m sure you can handle pain in general, but this is …” He glanced down at Jared’s groin, and a whole new jolt of fear shot through Jared.

“No, please, don’t do this. Whatever it is …” Jared caught himself and bit his lip.

“Good, that’s good. You’re beginning to understand, yes?” He held the cup to Jared’s lips again. “This is going to happen. You won’t remember it so vividly if you drink this.”

Jared put his lips to the edge of the cup and allowed the foul liquid to spill into his mouth. It was like evil flowing down his throat – bile and stagnant water, venom and rotting meat. He started to choke but forced himself to swallow.

“Good,” Misha said and lowered the cup. “Put him on his back,” he said to the guards.

Jared heard the squeal of metal on metal and the grind of gears as the entire rack tipped backward. The overwhelming sense of vertigo almost made the foul contents of his stomach rush back up his throat, but he swallowed it back down, tasting again the rank medicine. He could sense the drug beginning to weaken his muscles, dim his vision and muffle his ears. He wanted to fight it with everything he had, but he fought the impulse knowing the barber was right. This was going to happen no matter what he wanted.

The barber set a tray of instruments – small, nasty looking knives and pincers – on a table near the rack. Somewhere inside, Jared pulled away. He looked at the ceiling, and tried not to flinch when the barber touched his cock, cradled it in his palm, but with the first cut of the knife, his body went rigid. He thrashed against the restraints and screamed.

“Stop,” the barber shouted. He laid a hand firmly on Jared’s thigh until he stilled. “Listen to me. It’s in your best interest to lie very still or else risk your most precious asset – and consequently mine. Because believe me, if I inadvertently maim you, you will not be the only one who pisses sitting down for the rest of his life.” Misha moved forward and leaned over Jared’s face. His jaw was clenching and unclenching. “That boy,” he said and glanced up at the guards, “if you hadn’t noticed, is merciless. Now, you are going to lie still. Understand?”

Jared nodded, and the barber pressed a piece of leather between Jared’s teeth and moved back into position. As the knife began to cut again, Jared bit the leather so hard he felt like his teeth would break. His body was rigid, but unmoving, slick with sweat. His heart was pounding in his ears, and he just kept staring at the ceiling because the one time he looked down, the barber’s hands were slick with blood.

~~~

As Jared awoke, the pain in his groin made him gasp. The barber heard and came to his side.

“Back with us, are you? Good.”

“I …” His throat felt raw, and he wondered how much screaming he did. “It … fuck.”

“Yes, I’m sure there’s still a lot of pain, but nothing like before. Am I right?”

“I, I don’t remember … much,” Jared said, and he didn’t. There were bits and pieces. Yes, he remembered pain and fear, horror, at what was being done to him, but it was dreamlike.

“As I said,” the barber replied. He lifted Jared’s head and put a cup to his lips. Jared tried to pull away. “It’s just water,” Misha said.

Jared drank long and deep. The cool water was like a balm on his wrecked throat. He drained the cup. “Are we … is it done?” he asked.

Misha nodded. “The first part, yes,” he said. “There’s more. You’re to be branded with the king’s mark, but not until you recover somewhat. There’s only so much a body can take all at once.”

Branded, Jared thought. Of course, the king had made it quite clear that Jared belonged to him. These people kept slaves. He was to be the king’s slave. And he called Jared a barbarian because his people never settled in one place or claimed land or wore an unnecessary amount of clothing or jewels. They didn’t work steel or write all their thoughts on paper and store them in warehouses or attack others out of arrogance or greed.

Jared didn’t understand these so called civilized cultures he encountered in cities and towns. Their people were enslaved by their possessions and their desires if not by their noble classes. Why, he wondered, did masses of people allow themselves to be used the way they were – for the enrichment of a few?

Now he was to be one of those. Maybe he should thank the king for making him an honest slave instead of a deluded freeman. Still, his mind shied away from his current position. He didn’t want to consider the boy king’s interest in his body, but the ache in his groin wouldn’t let him forget for long. Surely, the kid wasn’t interested in him that way ... surely, but he remembered being a teenager, his body’s almost constant arousal and need. He had no doubt that this boy was quite capable of taking whatever he wanted. Even the barber had called the boy merciless.

Jared wondered at that – what it was like to be king at that age. Jared knew that he had been lucky to have a father who slowly gave him responsibility, who guided him and eventually entrusted him with leadership, and although he’d failed, at least he hadn’t had it thrust upon him so young. He couldn’t imagine how he’d have dealt with it when still so green.

“I’m going to change your bandages, and then you are going to eat,” the barber said. Jared tensed as the barber began to remove the bandages from his cock. He worked slowly and gently. Jared didn’t feel any more pain than usual until the last of the bandages, which were stuck to his skin, were pulled away. The barber began to wash his wounds with warm water, and talked as he worked. “You get stew for your lunch – with meat in it. The king apparently intends to spoil you.” A faint smile pulled at the man’s lips. “How will you like that? Being a spoiled pet?”

“A slave,” Jared corrected. They were alone now, and he felt more comfortable speaking to the barber.

“It would behoove you not to think that way,” Misha said.

“There’s no other way to think about it,” Jared said. He hissed in a breath at the sting of antiseptic. “It’s the truth.”

“Hmm, truth, I wonder,” the man said. Blue eyes flashed up at Jared and then back to their work. “You know we all tell ourselves stories ... Me, for example. It’s my job to heal people, and yet ... You weren’t ill or injured. So I tell myself a story that what I’ve done is prevent you further injury at the hands of one less skilled. I cannot stop what the king wants from happening; so I aid him. What does that make me? Pragmatic, I like to think. I don’t like causing you pain. I’ve done my best to minimize it and to make sure that you retain function – yes, yes, partially to protect my own hide, but also because it is my calling to heal.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Jared asked.

Misha sighed. “I’m trying to get you to understand that there are ways of looking at your situation, stories you could tell yourself, that make it easier to live with.”

Jared doesn’t think he can do that. The situation is what it is. “Can I ask you something? How long has he been king?”

Misha glanced up at him. “Almost four years.”

“Is he as horrible as he seems?”

The barber finished wrapping his wounds and a frown tugged at his forehead. “He was a child, a very bright child, who came to realize quite quickly that he could trust no one. He was manipulated from all sides, and he handles that with a mixture of reward and utter cruelty – the iron fist in the velvet glove.” Misha shrugged.

“What happened to his father?”

“His parents were both cut down by a mysterious illness,” the barber said.

“You tended them?” Jared asked.

The barber let out a mirthless laugh. “No, the first act of King Jensen was to have the barber executed as he was advised. I’m sure he wishes now that he’d had the opportunity to question the man.”

“Yeah, I would imagine,” Jared said.

The barber picked up his medical supplies and the bloody bandages that he’d taken from Jared’s wounds. Jared felt a little sick at the sight. He wondered what kind of damage had been done to him, but he really didn’t want to know.

“What ... what you did to me ...”

The barber looked over with raised brows. “Circumcised.”

“What?” Jared had heard the word. He knew that others did it, something, to baby boys, but he didn’t know what it meant. It wasn’t done among his people, and it wasn’t spoken of.

“You really don’t understand? I removed the foreskin. It’s unhygienic and ugly.”

Jared felt bile rise in his throat. He forced it down. “You’ve maimed me,” he said. Anger and a deep horror rose in him. He felt an overwhelming desire to pull his knees up and curl into a ball to protect himself, but it was too late. He’d been emasculated.

“Of course not. It won’t affect function at all,” the barber said. “None of our males have a foreskin, and we all have perfectly functional penises.”

Jared groaned and for the first time since the surgery, he fought the restraints. The more he fought, the worse the panic and revulsion became until he was thrashing on the table.

“Enough,” the barber said with surprising sternness, and it was just enough like Jared’s father’s tone to make him still. “You know for such a big, strong warrior, you’re a bit of a baby.”

Jared suddenly felt a little ashamed of himself for the loss of control. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I ... you just don’t understand. What you’ve done to me ... it ... I can’t even explain. What woman would want me now?” As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized how ridiculous they were.

Misha looked steadily at him and then patted his shoulder. “I do understand,” he said with a nod. “But it’s like I told you about the stories you tell yourself, there won’t be anymore women. You belong to the king, and this is what he likes. Try to tell yourself that you want what he wants.”

The barber bent then and worked the crank that tilted the table to a forty-five degree angle. “And now for some stew. You’ll like it. The king’s cook is quite skilled. She better be,” he added. “I’m going to release your hand so you can feed yourself. You’ll behave, won’t you?”

Jared nodded, and the barber unstrapped his right hand, and held the bowl while Jared scooped stew from it. Misha was right. The stew was delicious with big chunks of meat and vegetables, and the broth was thick and savory. He’d had so little to eat, just the porridge, in days that he wolfed it down. As he spooned the last of the broth into his mouth, he looked up to see the amused smile of the barber.

“I’ll get you another bowl, shall I?”

Jared smiled gratefully. “Yes, please.”

~~~

Jared couldn’t begin to describe the blinding pain of the glowing branding iron as it touched his chest or the gut churning stench of burnt skin. That was the lovely new design that the king had admired – a branding iron that now glowed white hot. His body tried to squirm away, but all he could do was bite back the scream that rose in his throat. It was bad enough that tears were streaming from his eyes – it was the acrid smoke from his flesh making his eyes water, he told himself – and he sobbed in a breath as the iron was pulled from his skin. There was a hiss of steam and splash of water when it was thrown into a bucket of water.

“You’re all right,” Misha said. “Doesn’t hurt so bad now, does it?”

He was right. The pain was gone as though his body was incapable of processing it. He panted to get his breathing and pounding heart under control.

“How is it?” came a voice from across the room. Jared knew the voice by now. His eyes sought out the boy who he found leaning against the wall near the door. He couldn’t interpret the expression in the bright eyes – excitement or concern or regret – it disappeared when they met Jared’s gaze.

“Perfect, sire,” Misha said. “It will require care to prevent infection, but it should heal beautifully.”

“See that it does,” the boy said and left the room with a slam of the door.

“He didn’t seem happy,” Jared said through gritted teeth.

“Mm, I’ve given up trying to understand him,” Misha said, but Jared suspected that was a lie. In fact, he thought a puzzle was exactly what Misha liked best. The barber was spreading salve on the brand. “You have to keep this clean and covered at all times. The last thing we need is for it to go bad. You don’t even want to imagine what kind of wrath he’s capable of.”

“He’d be angry,” Jared said, “that he was disobeyed.”

Misha flashed that look at him again – blue eyes assessing – and he shrugged. “Angry, disappointed, wounded, betrayed – it’s all the same to him. He lashes out at those who fail him in any way. Let’s not be among them, all right?”

Jared nodded. “What now?”

“Now, you will be moved to a room with a bed where you will behave like a recovering patient or I will personally punish you myself,” Misha said. His voice was stern but a smile played at the corners of his mouth.

Jared just looked away.

“Look,” Misha said, “there’s no point in fighting this. You know that. It’s futile, and who knows, what you imagine may be far worse than the truth that you so stubbornly cling to.”

“To be a slave?” Jared looked back at him. “To have no choice but to do another’s will?”

“Try to imagine that bending to his will is your choice,” Misha said with all seriousness. “It is in fact. You could try fighting him, but believe me that choosing to do as he likes will be preferable. You have that choice.”

“I could fight him,” Jared asserted.

Misha shut his eyes a moment and drew in a breath. “You could,” he said when he looked back at Jared. “But he won’t let you die, if that’s what you’re thinking. He won’t give you that out. I know him. He will not have his will subverted. He’s too smart for that. He’s chosen you, and he will have you as he pleases. It is your choice how hard that will be.”

 

_Talk to me._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jared, the son of a nomadic chieftain, is taken as a slave by the boy king of a ‘civilized’ nation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  I’d like to thank my darling betas [meus_venator](http://meus-venator.livejournal.com/) and [anniespinkhouse](http://anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com/) for all their feedback and support. Any mistakes are mine.

Jared was led into what could only be the royal bedchamber. The room was dominated by a high bed hung with purple drapes. Tall arched windows were set into stone walls that must be two feet thick. One the wall opposite the windows, was a fireplace that Jared would hardly have had to stoop to walk into; before it was a sitting area with heavy armchairs and a sofa.

The guards pushed him toward the end of the bed where a velvet cushion rested on the floor. The younger one of them shoved him to his knees on it with a leer, and the other clasped a length of chain to the collar around his neck.

“The little king’s bitch, you are,” the leering one said.

The other looked around nervously. “Shut up, you idiot,” he hissed.

“What?” the other laughed. “He is, in’t he?”

“Yeah, better to be His Majesty’s pet, than his guards,” the other said.

The leer turned to disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”

“No, who you think is more expendable, huh?” The older guard’s voice dropped to just above a whisper. “Us, you can bet. Who gets moldy bread and thin blankets? Us. Who has to patch up their boots and mend their own tack? Us. That creature, he’ll pamper.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll take the moldy bread over sucking that snot-nosed brat’s cock.” The guard’s leer had turned to a grimace of disgust.

“Ha, you’d suck his cock and beg for more if that’s what he wanted,” the older guard said. “We all would, if we know what’s good for us.”

“Not me. I’d rather go under the lash.”

The older guard stared the younger one down. “That could be arranged. Now shut up and get moving. I don’t want to be here, when he shows up.”

Jared settled on the cushion when the guards left. The room was comfortably warm, which was a good thing because he wore just a wrap of linen around his hips as he had since he was a child. Other than that he was bare but for the collar around his neck.

He’d spent weeks recuperating in a small bedchamber off the barber’s work room. He’d had a narrow bed and little else. He thought he’d go stir crazy, and probably would have if the barber hadn’t come in to talk with him a couple of times each day. The man had a curious mind and enjoyed hearing stories of Jared’s people, their customs and travels. In return, the barber told Jared about the city he now lived in and the ways of his captors.

The former king and queen had ruled with strength but fairness, which had apparently not set well with some of the nobles.  Misha didn’t say that was what led to their betrayal and possible assassination – Misha said a lot without actually saying much. He was quite skilled that way. What was clear was that since their deaths the court had been a pit of vipers with a very young, inexperienced but ruthless boy in charge.

“Who can blame him,” Misha sighed one day.

“What?” Jared asked in disbelief.

“He believes that his parents were murdered, that the same could happen to him,” Misha said. “What would you do?”

Jared scoffed. “I’d ...”

“Consider his age,” the barber cut in.

Jared does remember. He remembers fighting viciously with his brother over a bow, drawing blood, and both of them being punished with all night watch by their father. He remembers blinding jealousy that made him get into a fight with a friend because a girl had chosen him over Jared. He remembered the talk his mother had with him as she tended his black eye and cut cheek, the disappointment in her voice, his shame.

“It doesn’t change the fact that you people keep slaves. He feels justified in what he does by that,” Jared said.

Misha shrugged. “It is how it has always been. Our economy would collapse without them.”

“That’s crazy,” Jared said.

“Not slaves like you,” Misha said with a dismissive gesture. “But the slaves who work the fields are necessary. We couldn’t possibly grow enough for export without them.”

Jared thought that couldn’t be right, but he understood nothing really of these settled peoples. They wanted and needed so much more than what his people found necessary. He thought that must be the problem.

“You want more than you need,” Jared said.

“Isn’t that natural?” Misha asked.

“No, no, it isn’t. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

“Perhaps,” Misha conceded, “but how do you convince people to give up what they already have?”

Jared wondered on that. How indeed? He thought of the way he and his brother had fought over the bow. It wasn’t as if they each didn’t already have one, but they both wanted the better one. He was ashamed now for fighting with his brother over that bow, and for picking a fight with his friend over a girl. It wasn’t that his people were different from Jensen’s. They weren’t immune to envy or greed; they just had a different way of life. Their nomadic ways made the accumulation of goods impractical. He wouldn’t concede that the keeping slaves was moral, but he had to admit that giving them up would seem unacceptable if not impossible to these people.

~~~

Jared prepared himself mentally for what was to come. At least, he tried to. But the waiting was nerve racking. Every sound in the hallway, made his heart race. Over and over, he had to calm himself until when the door finally opened and the king stepped in, Jared had himself in a state of anxiety that bordered on panic. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He did it again and again as the king began to strip off his tunic and undershirt. Jared forced his breathing to slow as the boy approached. He stopped beside the cushion with his hand on the ornate bedpost and lifted his foot.

“Take my boot off,” he said. Jared reached up and placed a hand on the heel and one on the instep of the boot and pulled it off. He set it aside and when Jensen lifted the other foot, he removed it without being asked. Jensen leaned back against the footboard. “Now my pants,” he said.

Those weren’t Jared’s long fingers deftly working the buttons of the boy’s trousers open or pulling them off his hips. In some deep recess of Jared’s mind a voice was telling him to stop _, this was a child, a boy, stop_ , but his hands kept moving, pulling the trousers down off slim hips, dragging the underwear along with them, revealing pale skin as soft as a girl’s, but not a girl, definitely, not a girl. Jensen’s cock was half hard, more impressive than Jared’s had been at that age, _but a child, a boy_ , his mind screamed.

When Jensen’s clothes were around his ankles, he stepped out of them. He ran the fingers of one hand back through Jared’s hair, pushing his head back. The boy’s eyes were heavy lidded, dark, and he wet his lips with his tongue. He ran an index finger over Jared’s bottom lip.

“You have a beautiful mouth. Use it,” he said, and the fingers in Jared’s hair tightened and pulled his head forward toward the king’s cock, which was almost fully hard then.

“I don’t ...” Jared said, and the fingers tightened painfully in his hair.

“You want to please me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Jared hissed out, but he didn’t. He didn’t want this. He thought of the whores – both male and female – that he’d seen in marketplaces over the years. That’s what was expected of him – to be this boy’s whore. Every fiber of his being wanted to fight. He could. He could hurt this boy, perhaps kill him, before a guard could stop him, but what then? He wouldn’t get away. He’d be killed ... No, Misha had said that death wouldn’t be allowed, hadn’t he?

Jensen’s hand was wrapped around the base of his cock and he rubbed the precum slick head over Jared’s lips. “I want you to as well,” he said, but what Jared heard was _don’t disappoint me_. He let his lips part, and Jensen pushed in with a sigh. The fingers loosened in his hair, and the boy pushed his hips forward. Jared had been on the receiving end of this act; so he knew to cover his teeth with his lips, and he rubbed the underside with his tongue. He applied a little suction, and the boy’s hips bucked forward. Jared felt hair against his nose and inhaled the boy’s musky scent. There was suddenly no denying what he was doing and with whom.

He heard the low whine in his own throat, but fingers rubbed his scalp, both hands now in his hair, and Jensen’s hips rolled forward again and again. Jared just wanted to get through this, wanted it over, but he was unprepared when the grip on his head tightened and his mouth was filled with thick, bitter seed. Jared choked then, gagged, but he couldn’t pull away. His mouth was still stuffed with hard flesh, and cum ran from the corners of his mouth – because he was a whore, the king’s whore.

When Jensen’s hands released him, he fell back onto the stone floor, the chain yanking on the collar and his face covered in tears and cum. He brought a hand up to wipe his face.

“Stop,” Jensen said and grasped his wrist. “You look lovely that way.” He ran an index finger through the cum on Jared’s cheek and pushed it into Jared’s mouth. “Shouldn’t waste the Royal seed,” he said with a smirk. “You’ll learn to swallow.”

He stood back up and picked up a robe from a chair near the fire. Pulling it on, he crossed to table with a carafe of wine on it. He poured a glass and took a drink. “You did well,” he said without turning around. “For a first time. Quite well really.” He turned around then and looked at Jared where he still lay motionless on the cold stone at the end of the chain. “You’ve never done that before, have you?”

“No.” Jared felt hollow as though everything he’d been had been torn away. He was left a shell to be filled.

“No, of course not,” Jensen said. He crossed the room and knelt on the cushion. “Come here. Kneel.”

Jared pushed himself up and made himself kneel in front of the boy. Jensen held the wine glass to Jared’s lips. “Drink.”

The wine was warm and spicy, heavy on his tongue. It washed away the bitter taste of the king’s seed from the back of his tongue. Jensen caressed his cheek, and Jared looked up into emerald eyes that held what he could only interpreted as a pleased expression.

“I think you’re going to get quite good at that.”

~~~

Sleeping on a velvet cushion at the foot of the king’s bed was not as hard, physically, as one might imagine. For someone used to sleeping on skins on the hard ground, it was actually more comfortable than he was accustomed to. Just as he was beginning to wonder how cool the room was going to become as the fire died, Jensen pulled a fur off his own bed and draped it over Jared.

Spoiled. Misha and the guards had implied that Jared would be the king’s pampered pet. Perhaps this is what they meant – some kind of lap dog to a cruel master – but, no, he hadn’t been cruel, not exactly. He was just selfish and lacking any empathy or mercy.

And Jared hated him. He lay there on his velvet cushion and seethed. He was the son of a king as well. He too would have led his people one day. Instead, he was here, humiliated, used like a whore, by a petulant child. Tears of rage filled his eyes, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep silent. He hated himself for the thoughts of self-pity going through his head. He knew that those who’d survived the battle and the march to the city were much worse off than he was. They were working in the fields or in kitchens or whorehouses, and here he was raging at the unfairness of his fate.

But this boy had maimed him. He’d made Jared’s cock unrecognizable to him. Looking at it, touching it even to piss, made Jared’s stomach turn over. Making Jared suck him off was nothing compared to that. The brand was nothing. He was sure that the king, and even Misha, didn’t understand the violation he felt. What they’d done to him had been done to them as infants. They didn’t see themselves as lacking anything. They thought they’d improved him. Jensen said it was prettier, but it just looked wrong to him. It was someone else’s … It _was_ someone else’s, he reminded himself.

He sniffed and wiped his face. He considered what Misha said about the stories he could tell himself. He wasn’t sure what he could tell himself to make this better other than it could be worse, but he realized that if his life was going to be anything other than miserable, he’d better think of something.

Of course, in the back of his mind, he harbored ideas of escape or rescue. As unlikely as those thoughts were, he clung to them. He knew that his family would want to get him back, but they were not the kind of people for political negotiation in a royal court. Smart, sly even, as his father, Garran, could be, it was not his venue for diplomacy. He was far more experienced with trading sheep and goats to his advantage or forging agreements to share pasture land. Attempting to come here to get Jared back would be like walking into a lion’s den and Jared thought he wasn’t worth that. His younger brother, Vaxon, could follow his father into the role of chieftain.

And escape was just as unlikely. Here he was chained to the king’s bed, branded with his mark, and while his lack of clothing was natural to him, it would be noticed by all in the city – a glaring sign that he was a runaway slave.

He rolled onto his back and gazed into the shadows of the coffered ceiling. He longed for the open sky. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he was under it. He’d do about anything to see the stars and feel the sun and wind. Jared sighed, and a moment later the lamp flame was turned up.

“How am I supposed to sleep with all your tossing and turning and sighing?” Jensen complained. Jared’s breath caught in his throat when he heard to boy slide from the high bed. He heard bare feet pad across the stone floor and back to where he lay. “Sit up,” Jensen commanded, and Jared did. The king dropped down next to him on the cushion with a glass of wine in his hand. He took a drink and then handed it to Jared. “Now, what’s your problem?”

Jared took a drink to keep from spilling out all the vitriol that had been going through his mind. “I was ... I miss the sky,” he said. The boy was watching his face. The lamplight caught the golden flecks in his eyes like jagged shards of sunlight caught in the leaves of a tree.

Jensen nodded. “I suppose you would. It must seem confined here.”

Jared thought he heard sympathy in the boy’s voice, and he didn’t want that. “Yes, it is,” he said and took another drink of wine.

“Did you feel free out there on the plains?” Jensen asked.

Jared was surprised by the question. “Yes,” he said. Taking a chance, he returned it. “Did you when you were out there leading your troops?”

Jensen looked away. “No, I can’t remember ever feeling free. They would have me be a pawn. My life is not my own, but I suppose that I am _freer_ on the battlefield than here in this vipers’ den.” His gaze met Jared’s again, dark and searching. “You made a mistake. You might have killed me. Why didn’t you?”

Jared wondered just what he should say, how close to the truth he should come. “I didn’t know who you were. I thought you were just a boy.”

Jensen frowned and took the glass from Jared’s hand. “Why should it matter that I was a boy? I was killing your men.”

Jared shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “It didn’t seem right.”

Jensen smiled. “You thought you could take me because of my age – even though I had the better weapon, probably the better horse.”

“I have more experience in battle,” Jared said.

“One thing is certain,” Jensen said with a smirk, “one of us would be dead, and we wouldn’t be sitting here now.” He drained the wine from the glass and stood. “Go to sleep now. No more noise.”

Jared heard the boy climb back into bed and the lamplight died. He thought he wouldn’t be able to sleep as he pulled the soft fur up over his shoulder, but the next thing he knew, the sun was streaming in the tall windows. He sat up and looked around. Lying beside his cushion was a plate of fruit and cheese, a jug of cold tea and two books. He picked the books up and looked them over as he bit into an apple. One was a history and the other a novel of some sort. He smiled. He felt complimented that the king would think he could read which in fact he could. Not even Misha had assumed that.

The more he knew of this boy, the more confused by him he was. Up until the point of their conversation the previous night, the boy seemed to lack any empathy, but then he’d shown an interest in Jared. And now with the books, he seemed to acknowledge who and what Jared was. He didn’t know what to make of it.

~~~

Jared spent most of the day reading with just an interruption at midday when the maids came in to clean and change the linens. They brought hot water for the tub so he could bathe, and brought a tray of fruit and cheese and bread along with a jug of cold tea for his lunch. The young one acted as if he weren’t there, but he got a soft smile from the older one as they left.

He was well into the history when the king returned that evening. As the night before, he began to strip out of his clothes, and Jared put the book aside. He pulled the king’s boots off and stripped him of his trousers and underwear, but instead of being asked to perform oral sex, Jared was pulled to his feet. Jensen unlocked the chain from his collar and led him around the side of the bed where a chain attached to the headboard was locked to the collar. Jensen urged him onto the bed with a push of his hand. He lay down on his back and the boy crawled up over him on all fours. He seemed small like this. His muscles were still long and lean. He was slim in a coltish way, still only peach fuzz on his cheeks and sparse, silky pubic hair, but there was no innocence in the hungry gaze that met Jared’s.

The king pushed Jared’s legs apart and knelt between them. He took Jared’s flaccid cock in his hand, and Jared felt like he’d jump out of his skin. He’d never been touched in a sexual way by someone so young or so ... male.

“It’s still red,” Jensen said.

“Misha said it will fade,” Jared said. His voice sounded breathy to his own ears.

Jensen tipped his head and smiled. “It already looks prettier.” He stroked it gently, and Jared hissed in a breath. He hadn’t really touched it except to piss since the surgery. He tried not to look at it, but he knew it was much more sensitive. He had attributed that to the healing wound, but now he was shocked to find it plumping in the boy’s hand.

“Lovely,” the boy whispered. He released Jared’s cock to the man’s relief, which was short lived as he pushed Jared’s knees up and back. He palmed Jared’s balls and looked pleased. Jared felt like livestock being inspected by a new owner. He wondered suddenly if sheep ever felt violated. Jensen let Jared’s feet fall to the bed and moved over to the edge.

“You’re awfully tense,” he said. “Roll over. I’ll rub your shoulders.” Jared complied and Jensen straddled him. Jared tried to silently not freak out at the feel of Jensen’s thighs gripping his hips, his heat against Jared’s ass, and when the boy leaned forward, his balls rested against the small of Jared’s back. He began rubbing Jared’s neck and worked his way to his shoulders with gentle pressure. His thumbs pressed and circled into the tense muscles, and Jared felt himself slowly relaxing as Jensen worked his way down Jared’s back. Jensen moved back, kneed Jared’s legs apart and knelt there as he worked on Jared’s lower back. Jared was so relaxed that he didn’t think much of it when the king’s hands slid over the globes of his ass, but when he pulled them apart and a finger traced the cleft and circled the furled hole, he tensed.

“Shh,” Jensen said. Jared froze as the finger moved away, but when it came back and pressed into him to the first knuckle, he came off the bed with a shouted _No_. He was on his hands and knees when the riding crop came down across his shoulders. He never felt anything like it – a bruising burn all at once.

“Lie down,” the king shouted. Jared went flat on the mattress as the crop struck again and again. His father had always prohibited the use of crops on horses, and now Jared knew why. It was not a tool of discipline, but a harsh punishment – something an animal would interpret only as abuse. Jared understood it differently. It was a warning. He heard Jensen’s ragged breathing behind him, and the boy pressed himself against Jared’s back. “Don’t ever say no to me,” he said in Jared’s ear. He moved away then. “Get off my bed.”

Jared slid off the bed, but the chain prevented him from going any farther. He fell to his knees on the thin rug beside the bed. He fought to get his breathing under control. His back was on fire, and he dropped his head between his knees and shivered. The flame was turned down on the lamp, and Jared was left in darkness.

~~~

Jared awoke to the smell of coffee and bacon and fried bread. The chain rattled above him, and he tried to move his stiff muscles, which cried out all most as much as his back.

“Come on, get up.”

Jared looked up, and Misha was standing over him. He rose to his feet even though his joints screamed in protest – every inch of him stiff from sleeping on the cold floor. Misha turned him around and inspected his back.

“Not as bad as he made it sound,” the barber said. “Sit.” Jared was pushed toward a low stool beside a table loaded with food. “Eat while I take care of this.” Jared couldn’t help but wolf down the plateful of eggs, bacon, grilled tomato, and fried bread. And coffee – it had been ages since he’d had coffee. It was the one luxury item that his people sought out when they were near cities.

“What in the world did you do to enrage him this way?” Misha asked as he spread salve over Jared’s back.

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Jared said between mouthfuls of bacon.

“Oh, it’s like that,” Misha said. He finished applying the salve and sat down on a nearby chair. “I did warn you about disappointing him, didn’t I?”

Jared pushed the empty plate away and took a drink of coffee. “I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted.

“Remember what I told you about the stories you tell yourself?”

“Yeah, right – what that I’m the king’s whore?”

Misha raised his brows. “Is that the story you want to go with?”

Jared huffed out a breath. “What other?”

Misha shrugged. “I don’t know – that you’re his lover, his protector, his friend.”

Jared’s mouth dropped open. “Are you serious? You did see what he did to me.”

“Because you saw yourself as his slave, a victim. You said yourself, a whore.”

“How can I make myself want something that goes against everything I am?” Jared demanded. He leaned his elbows on his knees and put his face in his hands.

“It’s your story. I can’t write it for you,” Misha said. His voice was quiet and calm. “Look for a place to start. Is there anything you like about him?”

Jared looked up. “What?”

“To be his friend – is there anything redeeming about him? Anything that makes you like him?”

“He, umm, he assumed I could read – even though he called me a barbarian, he assumed I was educated.”

“There you see, and he’s beautiful,” the barber got to his feet.

“Yes, but still ...”

“It’s a start,” Misha said. “You have to start somewhere.”

 

_Talk to me._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jared, the son of a nomadic chieftain, is taken as a slave by the boy king of a ‘civilized’ nation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  I’d like to thank my darling betas [meus_venator](http://meus-venator.livejournal.com/) and [anniespinkhouse](http://anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com/) for all their feedback and support. Any mistakes are mine.

 

When Misha left he chained Jared back at the end of the bed and left his books and the jug of cold tea near at hand. Jared spent the day reading and napping. His back hurt if he laid on it, but he exercised as best he could within the length of the chain. He had pent up energy. He wasn’t used to lying around all day. He was bored and uncomfortable. No matter how far he put the chamber pot from him, he could smell it, and it disgusted him. Having spent his entire life on the move, he’d never had to live with the disgusting but necessary receptacle. He thought that people that lived this way must be mad.

He sat back down on his cushion. It was late, fully dark out, and much later than it had been the two previous nights when Jensen came in. He was followed by a maid who set a covered tray on the table and retreated. Jensen waited until the door closed behind her before flopping onto the floor near Jared with a sigh. He looked like a sixteen-year-old, a very tired one, dressed in adult clothes. He wore a robe worked in gold thread over his tunic, and it was held shut by a heavy gold chain with large sapphire clasps at each side.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” Jared said.

“Misha said so,” Jensen said.

Jared took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

Jensen chewed his bottom lip for a moment. “Why?”

“Because it’s my place to obey you,” Jared said.

The boy narrowed his eyes and studied Jared’s face as though trying to decide if there was deception in what Jared said.

“This is hard for you,” the boy said. “What happened last night …”

Jared decided to risk honesty, because he knew the boy was lied to and manipulated enough. “It isn’t in my nature to be with a man.”

“I’m not pleasing to you.”

“It isn’t that. You’re beautiful, but I …” Jared shook his head. “I like women, adult women.”

Jensen nodded. “How do you find me beautiful?”

Jared looked over the boy’s face and couldn’t help but flash on the image of the fierce young horseman he’d first seen him as. “You have the most amazing green eyes I’ve ever seen – like moss in the spring along the river – and your mouth …”

“Is like a girl’s?” Jensen asked. He cocked an eyebrow at Jared as though he’d heard that before.

Jared wondered if he shouldn’t agree, but he nodded.

“Do you like kissing girls?” the king asked.

Jared chuckled despite himself. “Yeah.”

“I have a theory,” Jensen said and got to his knees. He leaned forward with his hands on Jared’s shoulders. “That a mouth is a mouth. I think we should test that theory.”

He brought his lips within a hair’s breadth of Jared’s, and Jared didn’t want to kiss him. He wanted to blacken his pretty eyes. Instead, he tipped his head up and brushed his lips over Jensen’s. They were soft, slightly open, and the boy gasped at the touch of Jared’s lips. Jared felt something completely right and utterly wrong uncoil in his chest. It was power – satisfaction at the control he had, however slight.

He brought his hand up and cupped Jensen’s cheek, held him as he pressed their mouths together. At first, it was just the chaste slide and brush of lips, but then he licked along the boy’s lush lower lip. Jensen made a humming sound in his throat and opened his mouth. Jared licked into it all soft wet heat. His eyes were closed, and for a moment, he forgot who it was, where he was.

When they broke the kiss, Jensen’s fingers were wrapped tightly around Jared’s neck, and there was a pink blush under his freckles. He looked up at Jared from under lowered lashes.

“So, what do you think of my theory?” he asked.

Jared hesitated before answering. “I think your mouth feels as lovely as it looks.” He felt his cheeks heat up. “So, I think your theory may be correct.”

Jensen laughed and rose to his feet. “I’m starving. Are you? Did they feed you while I was gone?”

“I had a huge breakfast quite late,” Jared said.

Jensen grabbed the jug of wine off the side table and the tray of food off the low one between the chairs and brought them to Jared’s cushion. There was roast beef and vegetables, cheese, and bread, more fruit. Jared immediately popped a strawberry in his mouth. Jensen smiled. He tore meat off the roast with his fingers and offered it to Jared by holding it in front of his mouth.

“I’m not a dog,” Jared said. He made a joke of it, but underneath, he felt that hot spear of resentment. He was the king’s pet, and much as he wanted to let it go, he couldn’t.

“Then I won’t make you beg,” the boy replied. It wasn’t sarcastic or superior. Jensen grinned like the sixteen-year-old he was, and Jared was reminded of the good natured teasing that his younger brother engaged in at that age. Despite himself, he laughed.

 “Fair enough,” he replied. He opened his mouth to accept the meat. His eyes fell shut with the pleasure of it – tender and juicy, redolent with herbs. “Oh, that’s mm.”

“It is, isn’t it? Cook’s the best.”

They were quiet then as they devoured most of the meat and vegetables, and leaving just some cheese, fruit and bread. Jensen fell onto his back and licked his fingers.

“Ugh, I’m stuffed,” he said.

“Mm, do you eat like this all the time?” Jared said.

“Is that bad?” the king asked.

“No, not at all. I was hoping since, you know, you share.”

For the first time, the boy broke into a full smile. “Yes,” he said, “I eat like this all the time.”

“Great. That’s great.” Jared smiled.

Jensen laughed and got up. He returned the tray and wine jug to the table and began to strip out of his clothes. He dropped each garment on the floor wherever it fell. Jared found it strange having been responsible for his own belongings for as long as he could remember. He had the urge to pick up each item of clothing and fold it. Tension began to build in him as he watched and wondered, suspected where this was going. He remembered only too well the evening before. But instead of coming to Jared, Jensen climbed into his bed and lowered the lamp flame.

“Good night, barbarian,” Jensen said. Jared thought he heard a smile in the statement.

“Good night …” He didn’t know what to call the boy. He heard Jensen’s covers rustle and a sigh.

Jared lay awake a long time thinking of the past day and night. He couldn’t quite reconcile the boy who had viciously beaten him with a riding crop the night before with the blushing boy whose soft, wet mouth had sought his earlier. His mind stalled there on that kiss, the seeking tongue and welcoming cave of his mouth, the way that the boy’s fingers twined behind Jared’s neck as though he could keep him from running away. Jared relished that momentary control evidenced by the pleased sounds the king had made.

Jared shifted on his bed, and his cock was half hard. He’d been too long without a woman or even his own hand. He felt a little sick with shame. He had to let that go. He wasn’t seducing a child. Jensen was the one calling the shots. He’d made that clear the night before. Jared was just trying to … to what? Create a story he could live with? Still, he resisted the urge to touch himself.

This is it, he thought. This is my life – satisfying the whims of a spoiled regent.

~~~

Jared awoke in confusion to the pale light of dawn, heat and hands and a hot, wet mouth suckling him, swallowing him down. He knew that his cock was more sensitive where the foreskin had been removed just below the head, the glans completely exposed for the first time, but he had no idea it would feel like this. It was so sensitive it bordered on painful. A hand stroked the base of his cock and perfect suction of the mouth … Suddenly, Jared was fully awake. He looked down into huge, dark eyes, and that mouth … _A mouth is a mouth_ … And the orgasm hit him, almost doubled him up. He sank the fingers of both hands into the king’s soft, golden hair, as the boy continued to lick and stroke him through the orgasm.

Jared’s big hands clasped the boy’s head and urged him up. Jensen crawled over Jared’s body on all fours until they were face to face. Jared was stunned. In the dawning light, the boy’s lips were plump and dark, and he didn’t understand why Jensen would do what he’d done.

“Was that good?” Jensen asked.

Jared’s laugh was shaky. “Yeah, it was amazing.” He pulled Jensen’s face down and kissed him, tasting his own bitter cum on the boy’s mouth. It bothered him less than he would have expected. The boy had given him a gift after all – that’s how Jared would have interpreted the act if a woman of his clan had done it. But this wasn’t. This was his enemy, his captor ...

Jensen broke the kiss and gazed down at him. “I wish I could stay here with you,” the boy said. He stood and strode across the room to the wardrobe. “But I have to go ... rule the country or ... put out fires or something.” He quickly pulled his clothes on. Jared could see the frown on his face in the rising light of morning. Jensen splashed cold water from the basin on his face and ran his fingers through his hair.

“I’ll send some food up for you,” he said. He stood with his hand on the doorknob just looking at Jared for some time. He looked so young, Jared thought, too young, and again Jared had trouble reconciling the boy before him with the one who’d tried to fuck him, who’d beaten him. “Wish me luck,” Jensen said.

“Good luck.”

Jensen nodded and left the room. The door closed softly behind him, and Jared fell back on his bed. He felt a cold, wet spot on the cushion against the back of his calf. The king had climaxed. The kid had gotten off just pleasuring him. He marveled at that, but was puzzled by it too. Jensen had tried to fuck him, rape him really or had he? What if the boy had gotten angry not because he wouldn’t comply, because he said no, but because Jared hadn’t wanted him? He remembered what Misha said about disappointing the king. Perhaps Jensen wanted Jared to want him. That’s why he’d changed tactics with the kiss and the blowjob. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just honey instead of vinegar. He couldn’t figure the kid out.

“He’s trying to seduce me,” Jared said. The sound of the words in his ears was surprising and disturbing in how much he wasn’t appalled by the idea. Jensen certainly had and amazing mouth. A mouth is a mouth, after all. Jared might not be appalled by the idea, but he was a little uncomfortable coming to that conclusion. Jensen was still a kid, just a boy. Jared sat up and rubbed his hands over his face. But Jensen wasn’t just a boy, was he? He was a king – a child forced to grow up too fast with no one to trust and not enough experience or knowledge to handle the job.

I’m the adult here, Jared thought, but he failed to see how that mattered. He was a slave. He had little power but through manipulation, and Jensen was proving himself to be far better at that than Jared who was by nature sincere and straight forward when dealing with people. Honesty had actually worked well with Jensen the night before though. He’d responded to Jared’s openness, and that wasn’t something he wanted to risk. Still, there could be manipulation in the way honesty was presented and when. The question was what exactly Jared was trying to achieve. He wanted to be free, of course.

The maids arrived then with a tray of food and hot water for his bath. The tub was placed close enough for him to reach. Without a thought, he dropped the linen wrap from his hips and stepped into the hot water. The younger maid blushed, but Jared wasn’t bothered. Nudity amongst his people wasn’t thought of as necessarily sexual. They all bathed together – men, women and children – in whatever lake or river they were near. Families lived together in large tents. It was impossible to avoid seeing one another unclothed, and they didn’t wear much anyway. The older maid just laughed and openly admired his body. That almost made him blush.

The younger maid – Millie, he learned – set about dusting and the older, Sally, began to straighten up. She made a tsking noise when she found the stain on his cushion, and she began to pull the cover off it.

“I’m sorry,” Jared said. “I, umm ...”

“The king, I know,” she said. “I’m sure his sheets are stained too.” She finished remaking Jared’s bed and moved to Jensen’s bed. She threw the covers back and sighed. “Boys,” she concluded as she stripped the bed.

Jared was drying off as the maids picked up their supplies and the dirty laundry. The older one turned back as she pulled the door shut. “Eat all your breakfast, sweetheart. You’ll want to keep your strength up for the king.” She gave him a grin and a wink then.

Jared felt heat rising in his face as the door shut. He couldn’t believe he was blushing like a teenage girl over the suggestive comment, but it didn’t stop him from polishing off his breakfast. He was starving after all. He couldn’t help thinking about the fact that everyone in the palace already assumed he was having sex with the king, or perhaps more accurately put, the king was having sex with him.

He couldn’t help but wonder who had come before him and how a sixteen-year-old boy could know so much and be so experienced. What Jensen had done that morning, that hadn’t been the first time. He clearly knew his way around a man’s body, and that bothered Jared more than he wanted to think about.

~~~

Jared spent the morning exercising and reading. He was almost finished with the history when Misha arrived. The barber looked more serious than he’d seen him those first days when he was putting Jared under the knife, and a cold coil of apprehension curled in Jared’s gut.

Misha pulled a low stool beside Jared and dropped a cloth bag on the floor.

“Hold out your wrist,” he instructed. Jared did, and Misha drew a leather cuff from the bag and wrapped it around his wrist. He closed it with an audible click of a metal mechanism. Jared turned his arm over to look at it and found no apparent latch, just a loop of metal where it could be attached to a chain as his collar did.

“Other wrist,” Misha said. “These have a metal band that runs between the layers of leather. They can’t be cut off with ordinary shears or a knife – not that I would recommend the attempt anyway. The king would be displeased.” He locked the second cuff onto Jared’s other wrist. “Your ankle now,” he said.

“Misha, what’s going on?” He moved his ankle forward, and the barber took it in his lap where he fitted it with a cuff.

 “The king is having a bad day.”

“What does that mean? Why are you doing this?” Jared’s heart was racing because none of this was making sense, and it all felt wrong.

“It’s the king’s will,” he replied. Misha reached for his other leg, and Jared let him take it and place the cuff on it.

Jared grabbed the barber’s wrist. “Misha, come on. What is going on? You’re scaring me.”

The barber shot him a warning glance with those blue eyes, and Jared dropped his hand. “He feels threatened,” Misha said.

“Why?”

“He has enemies,” the barber said as he rose to his feet. “Make sure he doesn’t think you’re one of them.” He picked up his bag and turned to leave.

“Misha.”

The barber gave no indication of hearing, and Jared was left alone feeling more a slave than ever.

~~~

The maid brought the dinner tray just after dark, but it was out of reach. Jared’s stomach was growling and the candles had burned down and guttered; so, he couldn’t even read. Only the lamp beside Jensen’s bed and the fire burning low in the fireplace provided any light when the door was thrown open and the king entered. Jared didn’t say a word, but every muscle in his body tensed. Jensen didn’t speak either as he strode to the table and poured a glass of wine, which he drained in one drink. He slammed his fist so hard on the table, Jared jumped, but still he didn’t say a word. Jensen stood very still, but Jared could hear him breathing. Then in a flurry of movement, the boy sent the contents of the table crashing to the floor. He roared as he turned and kicked a chair across the room.

“Jensen,” Jared said before he could stop himself.

The boy stopped as though every bit of energy had been drained from him. Jensen turned and the low light from the lamp fell across his face. For just a moment, Jared saw a look of utter devastation in his eyes. The front of his tunic was stained with something dark. Blood, Jared thought, he could smell it. Jensen was wearing heavy gloves that were stained with it too. Jared’s stomach turned over. Then, the king seemed to see him.

“Oh,” he said quietly, “you must be hungry.” He pulled the gloves off and dropped them on the floor before picking up the food tray and bringing it to Jared. He knelt in front of him and lifted the lid. His hands were shaking as he pulled a leg from the baked chicken. He pulled meat off and offered it to Jared as he had the night before. Jared opened his mouth to accept it, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the spray of red speckles across Jensen’s cheek. Their eyes met, and Jared saw a plea there to let it go. He didn’t question, didn’t say a word as the king fed him chicken and roasted potatoes and cheese.

“I’m sorry there’s no wine. I ...” The words caught in Jensen’s throat. He dropped his hands and looked away.

Jared reached up and began to unbutton the boy’s bloody tunic. “Take this off,” he said.

Jensen grabbed his wrists just above the leather cuffs. “They want me dead. They ... I ...” He sucked in a breath that sounded like a sob.

“Okay,” Jared said, “it’s okay.” The statement was meaningless, just something soothing to say, but Jensen let him pull the tunic over his head. Jared tossed it away. Jared remembered the day his brother’s favorite hound was gored by a wild board and died. Vax had the same devastated look that Jensen now did. Jared had helped him through that. He’d provided some comfort without threatening the kid’s burgeoning manhood. He figured that’s what Jensen needed now. He dipped a napkin in some tea and scrubbed the blood of the boy’s cheek. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Jensen clenched his jaw and shook his head. “There was a man with a dagger,” Jensen said. He pulled his undershirt away from his body to show the tear in it and the dark patches of blood. Jared grabbed the hem of the shirt and pulled it up to see Jensen’s chest. There over his ribs on the left side was a shallow cut about the length of Jensen’s little finger. “He was caught, but he wouldn’t talk. I tried but ... he wouldn’t.”

Jared was horrified, and a part of him wanted to recoil from what the words surely meant and what they and the blood on the boy’s tunic and gloves suggested he had done. He pushed the revulsion aside and concentrated on the look in the boy’s eyes. Jared was pretty sure that he saw not just fear for his life, but a layer of horror at his own actions.

“I don’t know what to do,” Jensen said.

Jared held the king’s hands in his. He swallowed the lump in his throat and took a deep breath. “Let’s go to bed,” he said. Jared thought that he might be making a terrible mistake, but he was pretty sure that this was a tipping point. He had one chance to do this right, to gain the boy’s trust.

Jensen searched his face for a moment and then nodded. He unlocked the chain from Jared’s collar and led him to the bed.

“Lie down,” the king said. Jared did, stretching out on his back on the smooth linens. Jensen pushed his hands above his head and chained the cuffs to the headboard. Jared breathed in through his nose and tried to calm his heart. Jensen finished stripping out of his clothes and without a word climbed on top of Jared and kissed him. Jared willed himself to ignore the vulnerable position he was in and the volatility of the boy astride him. He closed his eyes and thought of the night before and imagined the blushing cheeks and bright smile.

Jensen’s hands held his face, stroked through his hair and over his chest, and somehow Jared lost himself in that soft, wet mouth again. He thought he could get used to the comfort of it and the arousal it brought. The memory of it that morning pleasuring him and drawing out his orgasm had his cock hard. Jensen broke the kiss and nuzzled Jared’s neck before sitting up with an appraising look. He eased off Jared and to the side.

“Roll over,” he said.

This is a test, Jared thought. He really, really needed to pass it. He had some difficulty rolling over with his hand bound above his head, but he did it by getting his knees under him.

“Stay on your knees,” Jensen said as he moved between Jared’s spread legs.

I don’t want this, Jared thought, but he didn’t speak. He was creating this story, and in this story, he does want it. He has to.

Jensen ran his hands down Jared’s back and over his ass. He pulled the cheeks of Jared’s ass apart but instead of probing there with a finger as he had before, he bent and licked a stripe up the crease. Jared tensed a little, _I want this, he thought_ , and Jensen’s tongue moved soothingly, lapping along the perineum and at the furled hole. It circled the puckered flesh there and pushed in a little. This was not anything his people would ever engage in, and Jared was shocked both that anyone did and by how good it felt. He buried his face in the linens and bit his lip to keep any sound from coming out as the slick muscle pushed farther into him. It curled and twisted, and Jared’s cock got harder and began to drool.

Jensen made a humming sound and fucked in and out of Jared’s hole before pulling back and sucking at it. Jared grunted at the thought of those lips locked around his anus. This was so wrong. _I want this_. A part of him thought he should stop the boy, but he couldn’t.

The hands and tongue disappeared a moment, and Jared felt apprehension washed over him again. He heard rustling, and the pop of a cork leaving a bottle. Then a slick finger was sliding into him. His muscles tightened again, and the finger stilled inside him.

“Relax,” Jensen said. Jared willed his muscles to unclench, _I want this_ , and the finger began to move inside him. He couldn’t deny there was pleasure in it that he couldn’t explain. A second finger joined it, and they twisted and scissored, stretching his opening, and despite knowing the intent, Jared allowed himself to be worked open. When those clever fingers rubbed over a particularly sensitive spot inside him, he all but moaned.

“My gods, you have a beautiful body,” Jensen whispered. His free hand caressed Jared’s ass cheek and his mouth followed it with kisses and nips. “Oh gods, oh gods,” the boy muttered. The fingers pulled out of Jared’s hole, and he felt strangely empty. The mattress shifted as Jensen moved closer, and despite knowing what was about to happen, it was a dull surprise that opened him, stretching and filling him. Jared groaned at the sharp, fleeting pain as Jensen pushed all the way in. _I want_. He stopped and kissed Jared’s back before pulling out until the head of his cock caught on the sensitive, stretched rim, and he sank back in with a moan.

Jared felt his muscles loosening with every thrust. His body opened and welcomed the boy’s flesh until Jared found himself pushing back onto it. Jensen’s fingers gripped his hips as he began to pound into him, and Jared was surprised by the boy’s strength and the wanton sounds he was making. The slide and drag of Jensen’s cock over that spot inside Jared was like nothing he’d ever felt before. _Want this. Want it._ It made him hot and shaky and pliant. He spread his legs a little wider and tipped his ass up. Tension pooled low in his groin, and Jared knew it for what it was. He was tipping toward the edge, but Jensen’s movements suddenly faltered. His fingers dug painfully into Jared’s hips, and he shoved all the way into Jared and stilled. One hand moved to the center of Jared’s back as though for support and a sound like a sob came from the boy.

When Jensen’s flesh slid from his channel, it was followed by a trickle of his seed. Jared felt empty, and he was all too aware of the position he was in and the way he’d been behaving. But Jensen’s hands were back on him within moments, trying to move him.

“Roll over,” Jensen said. Jared was barely on his side before the boy was pushing between his legs and sucking his cock into his mouth. His fingers sought out that spot inside him, rubbed and pressed, and Jared arched off the bed with a cry as his orgasm swept over him like a tidal wave. He fisted his fingers clenched around the slats of the headboard he was chained to. He shook and moaned as his orgasm crashed upon him.

“Oh gods, Jensen,” he moaned as the boy licked him clean. He’d said the king’s name again, familiar and intimate. He wasn’t sure if it was right or wrong, but he couldn’t take it back. The boy looked up at him in a curious way, and then crawled up and unlatched the cuffs from the chain. He slid down against Jared’s chest and kissed him. Jared ran his fingers through the soft, golden hair and pulled the boy close.

“Jared,” he said softly.

“Hmm?”

“You can call me Jensen when we’re here alone.”

He hugged the boy a little closer and kissed the crown of his head. He thought he must have passed the test. He was struck by the image of the boy who’d stalked into the room less than an hour earlier, desperate and covered in the blood of a tortured man. A spark of anxiety tried to ignite in Jared’s gut, but it was extinguished the languid satiation of desire. He started to think that he hadn’t had an orgasm like that in a long time, but the truth was he’d never had one quite like that.

Here a sixteen-year-old knew something he didn’t, and again Jared wondered how that was. It was an uncommon act in Jared’s culture, but why was that spot there in a man if men weren’t meant to do that together?

“Jared?” Jensen had squirmed closer. He was lying almost on Jared’s chest with his face pressed into the curve of Jared’s neck.

“Yeah?” he responded. His right hand rubbed circles on the small of the boy’s back.

“Did you ... was that all right?”

“Yes, it was more than all right.”

Jensen sighed. “Okay, good.” He relaxed against Jared’s chest and soon his breathing was even and deep.

 

_Talk to me._


	4. The Barbarian Prince 4/7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jared, the son of a nomadic chieftain, is taken as a slave by the boy king of a ‘civilized’ nation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to thank my darling betas [meus_venator](http://meus-venator.livejournal.com/) and [anniespinkhouse](http://anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com/) for all their feedback and support. Any mistakes are mine.

[Back to Part 3](http://sylsdarkplace.livejournal.com/18955.html)

**Pairing:** J2  
**Summary:** Jared, the son of a nomadic chieftain, is taken as a slave by the boy king of a ‘civilized’ nation.  
**Warnings:** Slavery, non-con, underage (16/22), explicit sexual activity.  
**Word count:** ~2,800  
**Disclaimer:** The characters in this story in no way belong to me. They belong to themselves and any characterization here in is fictional. No profit is being made from this story. It is entirely for entertainment.  
**Author’s Note:** I’d like to thank my darling betas [meus_venator](http://meus-venator.livejournal.com/) and [anniespinkhouse](http://anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com/) for all their feedback and support. Any mistakes are mine.

  


Jared vaguely recalled waking to a gray dawn and rain splattering against the tall windows, green eyes and soft lips, but when he stretched and looked around, he was alone. A chain had been attached to the cuff on his left wrist. It was long enough that he could walk all the way around the bed and reach the chamber pot. After he relieved himself, he looked around for something to wear, but found nothing. He climbed back in bed and pulled the sheet up to his waist. He tried to read, but the sound of the rain and the dusky light made him sleepy and his mind unfocused. He was still sitting on the bed staring into space with a book on his lap when Sally and Millie arrived.

“Well, look at you. Moving up in the world,” Sally teased. Millie stared blankly for a moment before going to fill the tub with hot water. Jared slid out of bed and got in the tub while Sally changed the bedclothes and Millie began to rebuild the fire.

By the time Jared had dried off and gotten back in bed, the maids were cleaning up. Sally carried the breakfast tray to the bed and set it beside him.

“Sally, what’s going on? Have you heard?” he asked as she leaned in. He pitched his voice low; so Millie wouldn’t hear.

She looked up at him, and Jared was struck by how the soft lines around her eyes reminded him of his mother. His heart ached at the thought that he would probably never see her again.

“The whole place was in an uproar yesterday, but today it’s calm enough again,” she said.

“Have you seen him today?” he asked.

Her eyes twinkled as she smiled. “We don’t run in the same circles.”

“No,” Jared said feeling foolish. “Of course not.” He chewed his bottom lip.

Her demeanor changed then. “You’re worried,” she said with a frown.

“Yes, of course, I am. Someone tried to kill him ...” He stopped when he saw her eyes go wide. “You didn’t know. Oh gods, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No,” she said. “It’s all right. Things aren’t always as they appear. We’re not all nobles, you know.”

Jared frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Some of us know him. He wasn’t always ...”

“Sally, are you done, then?” Millie called from the doorway.

The older servant patted Jared’s hand. “Indeed, I am, missy,” she answered. “Try not to worry,” she whispered to Jared. “There isn’t much you can do.”

Jared leaned back against the headboard and nodded. When they’d left, he chewed absently on a piece of bacon. He thought it would probably drive him crazy, this life of inactivity. He’d always had something to do, someone to be with and talk to, and this sitting and waiting was torture. The threat to Jensen only made it more difficult to sit and do nothing but think.

~~~

It was mid-afternoon when Jensen returned. Jared was sprawled on his stomach on the bed reading a book on political strategy. He twisted around to see Jensen approach the end of the bed. He leaned on the footboard. His eyes swept up the expanse of Jared’s side and back.

“What are you reading?” he asked.

“The Prince,” Jared said.

Jensen raised his eyebrows. “Planning a coup?” he asked with a half smile.

Jared frowned and clenched his jaw.

The smile fell away. “Not funny?”

“Not in the least,” Jared said as he rolled over. Suddenly, he was hit with ten stone of muscle and another of silk and velvet and brocade. A boot heal caught him in the ankle with a sharp crack, but Jared didn’t make a noise. He just wrapped his arms around the king and held on. Jensen’s breath was hot against his neck, and he clung to Jared as though he was a tall tree in a flood.

“I had to get away from them,” he mumbled against Jared’s skin. “It was horrible. I don’t know who ... they’re all looking at me, waiting and I, I wanted to come back here, but I didn’t know how, I thought you ... I thought, I don’t know ...” The tension seemed to flow out of Jensen with the gush of words, and Jared pushed him away enough to see his face. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes bright, almost feverish.

“Hey, hey, slow down,” Jared said. “Okay? Now tell me.”

Jensen took a deep breath. “I don’t know who was behind what happened yesterday, but I know that some of them, at least one, must be in the court,” he said. “And I’m supposed to carry on business as though everything is normal, but I know that some of them are plotting against me, watching me to see if I’ll break. I couldn’t take it. I kept thinking about coming back here, but I didn’t know ...” His voice trailed off, and he looked away.

“How I felt about last night?”

Jensen nodded, and Jared smoothed his hair back and kissed his forehead. He felt something completely new – a strange protectiveness of the boy.

“It scares me,” Jensen said. “I don’t think I can do this. I need to be strong.”

“You are strong,” Jared said.

“No, I’m not. I’m weak. If I were strong, I wouldn’t be here with you saying these things.”

“Jensen, it’s okay to lean on other people when things are tough.” Jared shifted up onto his elbow and laid the boy on his back, but he didn’t let go.

“No, I know,” he said quietly. “But it’s not like you’re a counselor or a ...” He shrugged.

“It’s because I’m a slave.”

The boy didn’t say anything. He just lay there silent in a rich pile of fabric that made him no more beautiful than if he was naked.

“You know,” Jared said, “when I came here someone gave me some advice that helped me deal with this situation.”

“Being a slave?

Jared nodded. “He told me that we all make up stories that we tell ourselves to make our lives easier.”

“And that’s helped?” Jensen looked doubtful.

“Yes.”

“What story do you tell yourself?”

Jared shook his head. “I’ll tell you someday, but it’s not important now. What is important is what you tell yourself.”

“I don’t think that just telling myself I’m strong will help.” The boy set his mouth in a hard line.

“No, that’s not what I was thinking of. Why don’t you try telling yourself that I’m your friend.”

Green eyes searched Jared’s face. “Are you ... my friend?”

Jared felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “No, but I’m beginning to think I could be.”

Tears pooled in Jensen’s eyes but they didn’t spill over. He sat up and slid off the bed. “Okay, I ... I better get back.” He crossed the room with his shoulders squared, but he paused at the door without turning around. “Thank you, Jared.”

“You’re welcome, Jensen.”

The boy nodded then and left. Jared fell back on the bed wondering if it would all come back to bite him on the ass. But he really only had two choices – to work against Jensen and undermine him in hopes that he would fail or go all in with the kid. At least Jensen was a known commodity. Jared had no idea what would happen to him if Jensen was deposed or killed. And there was something else, something that made him want to see the boy for who he might have been, who Jared suspected might be inside him. He was laying odds on the kid.

~~~

Jensen came back earlier than usual. He began unbuttoning, unbuckling and unlacing the moment he walked in the door. He dropper layer after layer of clothing as he moved across the room. His hair was stuck damply to his forehead and the back of his neck. Jared suddenly understood. All those layers were protection against a blade.

“How are you?” he said. He sat up. “Are you hungry?”

“I am,” the boy conceded as he pulled his undershirt over his head.

Jared yanked on the bell-pull over the bed to alert the maid – Sophie probably at this time of day.

“Come here,” Jared said. He patted the bed beside him, and when Jensen sat down, Jared dropped to his knees before him and pulled his boots off. Jensen ran his fingers through Jared’s hair and gave him a tired smile.

Sophie chose that moment to knock and enter. She pulled up short and waited. “Sire?”

“Bring us something to eat,” Jensen said.

“Oh and Sophie, bring some hot water so the king may bathe,” Jared said.

The girl looked at Jensen who nodded. “Do as he asks whenever it is on my behalf,” the boy said.

“Yes, Your Highess,” the girl frowned, but bowed and backed out the door.

Jared rose to his feet, and standing in the V of Jensen’s legs, he pulled the boy against him. “Is that what I should call you? Your Highness?”

Jensen grinned. “That would be rather cumbersome in bed, I think.”

Jared chuckled.  “Indeed, I don’t think I could manage it when you do the kinds of things you did last night.”

Jensen took his wrist then and urged him to sit beside him on the bed. “I wanted to talk to you about that.” The boy’s brows pulled together in such a serious way Jared wanted to laugh again, but he kept his expression neutral. “The first time I tried to touch you that way, well, you didn’t want it, but last night, you seemed different. I know you said you like women; so …”

“Well, you proved to me your theory about mouths,” Jared said. “You clearly knew what you were talking about with that; so I thought perhaps I’d let you demonstrate your knowledge on other matters.”

Jensen smiled, and if he suspected that Jared’s explanation was a deflection, he let it go. He leaned in and kissed Jensen on the mouth, letting his lips linger for just a moment on the king’s. He laid back with Jensen’s urging, and they explored one another’s mouths – slick tongues and sharp teeth, soft lips and heated breath. It was slow and deep and good.

Sophie returned then bearing a tray of food and a jug of cold tea and another of wine. Jensen sat up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He smirked at Jared who still lay on the bed. Sophie was followed by a young man no older than Jensen, who carried two buckets of hot water. He dumped them in the tub as Sophie set the tray and jugs on the low table in the center of the room.

“Will there be anything else, Sire?” she asked.

Jensen repressed a laugh. “No, thank you. You may leave us alone for the night.”

She curtsied. “Thank you, Sire.” The servants retreated to the hall, and Jensen laughed aloud.

“What’s so funny?” Jared said.

“Sire? It’s just a funny term, isn’t it? I’ve never fucked a girl. So, I’m pretty sure I haven’t sired anyone.” He unlocked the chain from the cuff on Jared’s wrist and pulled him toward the group of chairs around the table that held the food.

“You’ve never lain with a girl?” Jared asked as he sank onto a heavy chair with clawed feet.

Jensen sat across from him. “No, why would I lay with a soft, weak girl when I could have … you?” He arched an eyebrow, and his eyes roamed over Jared’s body as he spoke. Jared felt his face grow hot. Jensen grinned, and then pink bloomed in his own cheeks. Jared laughed and popped a grape in his mouth.

Jensen raised the cover on a platter to reveal four Cornish hens. “I bet we could eat them all,” he said.

“Are you kidding? I could eat them all,” Jared said.

They each began to pick apart a bird of their own accompanied by wild rice and yams. They fell silent in a surprisingly comfortable way. The light faded outside as they ate, and when Jensen was finished, he went around the room and lit candles. He refilled Jared’s wine glass and stepped away.

“I’m going to bathe,” he said.

Jared just nodded and leaned back in the chair. It was odd. He was unused to sitting on furniture. The ornate chairs didn’t seem designed to hold his long, sprawling limbs. He sipped his wine while watching the fire. His belly was full and the dark wine flowed through his veins and the dance of the flames nearly hypnotized him. He heard the splash of water and turning saw the light flicker over bare skin as Jensen emerged from the tub. The boy began to rub the bright drops of water from his freckled skin, and Jared went to him and drew him into his arms. Jensen tipped his head up, offering his mouth, and Jared took it, plundered it.

“You do want this?” Jensen asked when they both came up for air.

Jared just nodded and lifted the boy off his feet and carried him to the bed. Laying him on the crisp linens, Jared kissed his way over Jensen’s flat belly and the ridges of ribs, up the arch of his neck to that luscious mouth. Jensen’s fingers twisted in his hair and held him close as his legs wrapped around Jared’s waist. They kissed lazily, ratcheting up their arousal until Jared’s cock ached and he could feel Jensen’s pressed against his stomach. He rolled them over then, pulling Jensen on top of him.

Jensen grinned from his perch astride Jared’s hips. He stretched across the bed and picked up a small bottle. He pulled the cork out and poured oil into his hand. Moving back over Jared’s thighs, he slicked the oil onto Jared’s cock and began to stroke it. Jared drew in a breath and smiled. The kid sure knew what he was doing, but what sixteen-year-old didn’t have practice at that.

“You like that?” he asked.

Jared nodded. “Yeah, that’s … yeah.”

“Will you do something for me?” Jensen asked, and Jared nodded. The king was asking, and Jared thought that was a good sign. Jensen stopped stroking him though, which wasn’t a good thing, and moved forward over Jared’s hips. He rubbed oil on Jared fingers and guided them between his legs. He pressed the tip of Jared’s middle finger against his the tight, puckered flesh there.

Jensen’s eyes were dark, the lids heavy. “Please,” he said.

Jared pressed just the tip in, and Jensen hummed in approval.

“You don’t have to do this,” Jared said.

“But I want to.”

Jared began to press farther in when Jensen suddenly dropped down and shoved Jared’s finger deep into his hole. He gasped, and his eyelids fluttered. He lifted his hips up a little and looked Jared in the eye. He nodded, and Jared began to fuck the slick digit in and out of the boy’s hole. Jensen was riding his finger as much as Jared was fucking him with it, and the head of Jared’s cock was rubbing against the small of Jensen’s back. He couldn’t help but imagine what it might be like to shove it into that hot, tight channel.

Jared wondered if Jensen had that sensitive spot inside like he did, and he crooked his finger and rubbed the wall until he found a firm lump. Jensen cried out and the movement of his hips altered as though he was chasing that finger.

“More,” he panted.

“What?”

“Another, more.”

Jared pushed a second finger in, but the boy wasn’t satisfied for long before he was asking for yet more. Jared recalled the feeling, the thought that he might come just from that, but there was more he could do. He wrapped his other hand around Jensen’s leaking cock and began to stroke it.

“No, no,” Jensen said. He stilled his movements and frantically pulled Jared’s fingers from his hole as well. Almost before Jared could process what was about to happen, the kid was lowering himself onto Jared’s aching flesh. Jared didn’t have a moment to think of how wrong it was because it felt too right – all that crushing heat swallowing his cock.

“Gods,” he said when he looked up and saw Jensen’s face. His neck was arched, eyes fallen shut, lips parted. “Gods, Jensen, oh …” He grasped the boy’s hips and helped lift him. He needed movement, needed to feel the drag and burn of that sweet channel. Jensen seemed to come back to life then. He began to ride Jared like a fury. His palms were flat on Jared’s chest, and he dropped his head forward, panting through parted lips.

The heat in Jared’s belly was like the embers of fire catching kindling, sparking out onto the dry grass and leaping, spreading. Suddenly, Jensen’s rhythm faltered. and he tensed. His muscles clenched around Jared’s cock as he tried to get his rhythm back, and Jared  looked up into wide eyes as he felt stripes of cum fall across his belly and chest. His balls drew up hard, and he was spilling his seed into the boy. He was alight, a brush fire. His body arched off the bed at the intensity of his climax. He had no control as it responded of its own will.

As he fell back against the bed, Jensen collapsed on his chest, rubbing his slick between the two of them. Jared ran his hands up and down Jensen’s back.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said, “but I’m glad you did.”

“Really?” Jensen asked.

“Yes, for now. I’ll feel guilty later.”

Jensen raised his head. “Why?”

Jared stroked his golden hair. “I know you’re a king, but you’re still, well, you’re young.”

“Hmm.” Jensen sat up and let Jared’s cock slide from him. He got up and went to the tub. “Good thing we still have bath water.” He washed off and then brought the washcloth to Jared who washed off the cum that was smeared from his cock to his shoulders. Jensen tossed the washcloth back into the tub and sat cross-legged on the bed.

“Were you ever attracted to someone older?” Jensen asked.

“When I was your age?” He thought a moment and an image came to mind that still made him smile. “Yes, I was. Elyra.”

“Tell me about her,” Jensen said.

“She was beautiful. She had golden skin and long, long legs. Her hair shined in the sun the color of a raven’s wing. Her eyes were dark and warm. I felt like I could fall in and never get out. But it wasn’t just the way she looked. She was so full of life. She had this energy, joy.”

“And if you could have lain with her?”

“I would have considered myself the luckiest boy alive,” Jared said with a grin.

Jensen laughed and then became serious. “And if she would have, should she have felt guilty?”

Jared thought about it. By all rights, the answer should be yes, but he knew that it wasn’t. “No,” he said. “It would have been the most wonderful gift I’d ever gotten.”

Jensen smiled. “Good, I’m glad you understand then.”

“Jensen.”

“I know, I know, you’re supposed to be the responsible adult, but I’m not an ordinary boy. I’m responsible for a country, thousands of people. I think I can be responsible for myself.”

Jared nodded. It was hard to argue with that logic. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, but I might not answer.”

“Okay. How old were you, the first time?”

He pursed his lips a moment. “Twelve?”

“How old was he?”

“He was, I don’t know, seventeen maybe.”

“Tell me about it.”

Jensen stretched out and propped himself up on an elbow. “He worked in the stables. He was a riding instructor. Not that I couldn’t ride, but I’d had no training in riding in battle. He was gorgeous. I guess, I had a crush on him. He ignored it at first, but … eventually he kissed me. I wanted him to, you know. I’m used to getting what I want.” Jensen was picking at the edge of the sheet. “One thing led to another. That’s all. Hands and then mouths and then …” He shrugged. “He … He was quite persuasive. I was scared. I was afraid it would hurt, but he used his fingers and it felt good, but he wouldn’t let me do it to him.” Jensen looked up at Jared. “It became just that. Just him fucking me, but I kept going back anyway because … I don’t know. I got off, I guess. Then one day, he was in a bad mood. He was being a jerk, and I said I wanted to go. He wouldn’t let me. He did it anyway.”

Jensen grimaced with anger, but his eyes were wet with tears. Jared didn’t say a word. He couldn’t. He couldn’t imagine the cruelty of someone doing that to anyone, especially a child.

“He did that to me,” Jensen said through clenched teeth. “To his king.”

He hadn’t thought of it that way and what that meant to Jensen, not as a person, but as a ruler. That someone would have so little regard for his position must have come as a shock. He was to be obeyed in all things.

“What did you do?” Jared asked.

“I killed him. The next day, I took a dagger … Do you think that was wrong?” The boy bit his lip.

Jared caressed his cheek. “No, Jen, I don’t.”

A tear spilled over a freckled cheek. “Do you want to kill me?”

“No.” Jared pulled Jensen into his arms. “No, of course not. It’s why you were angry with me for saying no,” Jared said. “I didn’t obey you.”

Jensen nodded and snuffled against Jared’s neck. “But what I did to you that first night, and then when I tried to … I thought about it.” He looked up at Jared with red rimmed eyes. “It was wrong, like what he did to me. I’m sorry.”

Jared nodded and pulled him close. He’d felt used that first night, like a whore. He didn’t know what to say. It was like what had happened to Jensen, except Jensen had been a child, was a child, and Jared was the adult.

“It’s okay,” he said, but it wasn’t. Jensen understood what he’d done, and that he was wrong. “I forgive you,” Jared said, and he did.

 

_Talk to me._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jared, the son of a nomadic chieftain, is taken as a slave by the boy king of a ‘civilized’ nation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to thank my darling betas [meus_venator](http://meus-venator.livejournal.com/) and [anniespinkhouse](http://anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com/) for all their feedback and support. Any mistakes are mine.

 

Jared was awake. Awake as he was the night a mountain lion had crept into camp. He lay very still but opened his eyes, and in the ruddy glow of the embers, he saw a movement near the door. He pushed his heel back against Jensen’s shin, dug it into the bone, and rubbed. Jensen’s hand pressed flat against his back as though to say, I know. I’m awake too. The hand moved away and the tip of a finger tapped in the same spot … _one … two …_ and Jensen rolled away and off the opposite side of the bed as Jared rolled off his side. He came up in a crouch and quickly circled around behind the sitting area. He heard the snick of metal as Jensen’s sword left its scabbard. Jared grabbed the poker from the fireplace and turned swinging at the nearest shadow. There was a cry and the clatter of metal hitting the stone floor. He’d disarmed the assailant. When the poker reached the end of its arc, he brought it back up at what he thought was the head of the retreating shadow. There was a crunch of bone and the shadow dropped without so much as a grunt.

On the other side of the room, he could see Jensen’s pale body moving and heard the clang of metal on metal. There was a hiss of pain and then a grunt before something heavy hit the floor.

“Jensen,” he said.

The pale form stood still for a moment and then crumpled. There was silence. Jared rushed to the table and lit the lamp. His eyes swept the room taking in the two darkly clad forms on the floor and the king’s with his sword still in his hand. Jared went to him and rolled him onto his back. His eyes took in the boy’s naked body. There was just one cut on his upper arm.

“Poison,” Jared said. He was on his feet and throwing the door open. “Guards,” he yelled. “Guards! Get the barber! The king is poisoned!”

~~~

Jared didn’t know how long he’d been in the cell. There was no light but a dim reflection from a torch far down the corridor. His wrists were manacled together and chained to the wall. There wasn’t even enough slack in the chain for him to stand. He feared that if he laid down, he wouldn’t be able to sit back up; so he sat there with his back to the wall. He slept fitfully on occasion with his forehead on his knees. When his eyes were open, they fought the darkness to try to see the creatures that scuttled there. He kept his heels back against his balls to protect them from the rats or whatever it was in there with him. He was still as naked as when he’d rolled from the king’s bed.

Time had become an illusion, a torture without measurement. He knew he’d been there long enough that he was sitting in his own piss, but not so long that he’d soiled himself. He wondered how much longer it would be before he was released or executed or … or maybe not. Maybe he’d just be left there to rot.

He wondered if the boy was dead – the beautiful, cruel boy with the soft mouth – somehow he couldn’t get Jensen out of his head. He shouldn’t worry so much about whether the boy was alive, just about his own fate. He tried to tell himself that he was only worried about the king because his fate was tied to Jensen’s, but he knew that wasn’t true. In the moments before the guards dragged him from the royal chamber, he held the boy in his arms and his chest ached. He wanted nothing more in those moments than for those moss green eyes to open. He’d been only slightly reassured by the fact that breath still passed shallowly between his parted lips and his heart beat faintly.

Jared couldn’t think now of open plains and fresh air. Those visions were like a dream, unreal and insubstantial.  But somehow remembering Jensen’s mouth and hands, the sparkle in his eyes, and his smile, was real and comforting. He wanted those back. He wanted that warm body curled against him, the soft brush of hair on his cheek, that hot, wet mouth everywhere.

He was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of boots in the corridor, and moments later a dark figure stood at his iron latticework of his cell door backlit by the light of a torch carried by a guard. Jared didn’t bother trying to move or utter a word. He waited.

“Do you not speak, barbarian?” Jared knew the voice. It was Morgan, the general, but he didn’t answer. He didn’t bother. “Has he broken you then?”

There was a pause in which neither spoke. Only the sound of the guard shifting uneasily broke the silence. Finally, Jared surrendered to the need for information. “Does he live?” Jared asked. “Did the vipers fail?”

There was another beat when Morgan didn’t speak as though considering his answer. “They did indeed. He’s a tough little son of a bitch, and he says you came to his aid.” Morgan stepped back from the gate then, and the jailer came from the shadows and unlocked it. Two guards followed the jailer into the cell, and when he released the shackles from the bolt on the wall but not from his wrists, they lifted Jared to his feet. His joints and muscles screamed with stiffness from sitting on the cold, damp floor for so long. He was thankful that the guards helped support his weight or he would surely have collapsed back the filthy floor.

As he was led through successive doorways and corridors, they became lighter and cleaner. Finally, they came to what appeared to be the laundry. It was steamy and warm, filled with women’s voices chatting and singing. A tall woman with ruddy cheeks and muscular arms stepped in front of Morgan, and their little group came to halt. The head guard looked somewhat intimidated by the woman’s stern expression, but Morgan just smiled.

“Alice, my dear,” he said. “The king’s slave needs a good scrub.”

The woman eyed Jared up and down, and she gave Morgan a look of disgust. “He’s filthy,” she said. “We’ll have to drain a vat after we get done with him.”

“Yes, it’s unfortunate,” Morgan said to the formidable woman. “But I’m sure the king will be eternally grateful.”

She just stared at the general evenly. “I’m sure the king won’t think one way or another as long as his pet is clean,” she said. “All right then. Put him in that one there.” She nodded her head to the vat on their right, and the guards lifted Jared off his feet and tossed him over the side before he could react. He landed on his back with his head under water, and with his arms still bound behind him, he almost panicked before he realized that all he had to do was get his knees under him to get his head above water.

Two washer women waded into the vat with him, and began to scrub him down with cloths and soap and brushes. The whole time Morgan, Alice and the guards stood and watched. Jared dropped his head. There was something more humiliating about this public washing, than anything he’d been through. Whatever had happened between him and Jensen had been private, but this on his knees, bound and washed this way like an animal made him want to curl into himself, retreat from the scrutiny of the little group.

“He’s well made in’t he?” Alice said.

“Mm,” Morgan responded.

“How he likes ‘em?” she asked. “Bigger and stronger than ‘im?”

“Usually,” the general said.

“Huh,” laundress remarked.

Jared flushed even more in the hot water. He wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t the first, but he was bothered to think that he was just the latest of the king’s whores, nothing special to the king. He didn’t know why that would bother him, but he didn’t have the focus to dwell on it. It was just another indignity to add to all the others.

One woman was rinsing soap from his hair, and he was made to stand so the other began to wash below his waist. She built up a layer of suds on his belly and began to work down over his groin and around his balls. Despite the stimulation, his cock was soft and drawn up as far as it would go – as though he was in a chilly stream and not a hot bath.

“Not much interested in the girls is he?” Alice chuckled.

There was only an answering grunt from Morgan. Jared looked up, and the general met his eye for a moment before looking away uncomfortably. Jared suspected the man didn’t like this part of his duties. He was a soldier after all, not the king’s procurer.

One of the laundresses was soaping Jared’s lower back and moving down over his buttocks and between them. He felt bad for the women washing him. He could only imagine the smell that he’d become inured to in his cell. He knew that his body was crusted with dirt, his own urine, and excrement left by numerous former prisoners.

The continued to wash down his legs, lifting each one in turn to get his feet, before helping him step from the tub and sluicing him with clean water.

“Thank you,” he whispered when they’d finished. He saw one smile briefly and caught her eye. She gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder before they got soft flannels and dried him.

“We’ve no clothes to fit that giant,” Alice said.

“All he needs is a length of linen,” Morgan said.

“Yeah?” she found a length that would do, wrapped it around him, and secured it inexpertly. Jared suspected he’d be lucky if it didn’t fall off before he got wherever it was they were taking him.

“Madame,” Morgan said and gave Alice a nod. He led the guards with Jared between them from the room. Jared was taken up a staircase and through a series of increasingly wider and brighter corridors. They turned a corner and there was a long stretch of red carpet leading to an ornate door, and Jared realized where they must be. It was the very place he’d left the dying king.

Morgan stepped up to the door and rapped on it firmly. The door was opened from within, and the guards with Jared between them followed Morgan in. The old man with the white beard and another elderly man in robes stood to one side of the room, and Misha sat at the side of the bed, but Jared saw only the boy king propped up on a mountain of pillows. Jensen sat up.

“Release his hands,” Jensen demanded. The guards rushed to obey, and no one in the room questioned the order. Jared’s arms fell to his side, and he flexed his stiff shoulders and rubbed his wrists where the shackles had bruised the flesh and rubbed the skin raw. “Now go,” the king ordered. The guards backed to the door, but no one else moved. “All of you,” the boy shouted. That put the rest of them in motion.

Morgan exited with his guards and the old men followed. Misha stood but hesitated. “Do take it easy, My Liege,” he said.

“Shut up and get out, Misha,” Jensen said. Misha pursed his lips and started for the door. His eye met Jared’s for a moment. “Misha,” Jensen said, and the barber halted but didn’t turn back. His jaw was set in anger. “Forgive me for being abrupt,” the boy said. “I just ... I need to speak with him alone.”

“Yes, My Liege, of course,” the barber said. He smirked at Jared and left the room, pulling the door shut quietly behind him.

“Come here,” Jensen said. He was kneeling on the bed, dressed in just a white nightshirt that made him look like a child, but Jared didn’t care. When Jensen held his arms out to him, he crawled onto the bed and pulled Jensen into his embrace. It took an act of will to keep from crushing the boy against his chest.

“I thought you were dead,” he whispered.

Jensen pressed his face into the curve of Jared’s neck. “No, thanks to you, I’m quite alive.”

Jared kissed the crown of his head. “We worked well together,” Jared said. “If not for the poison ...” Jensen’s body shook with a chuckle.

“Yes, if not ... We dispatched them quickly, didn’t we?”

“Indeed, we did.”

“Why? I mean, you could have let me die,” Jensen said. He looked up into Jared’s face then. Jared laid the boy on his back and covered his body with his own before kissing his freckled cheeks and his forehead, his eyelids and throat, and finally his mouth. His tongue traced along the line of Jensen’s teeth and plunged into the depth of that hot, wet pit. It played along the line of Jensen’s slick tongue, twisting and seeking.

“I don’t know,” he said when he broke the kiss. He spilled the words into Jensen’s ear. “I don’t understand why I care about you, why you’re important to me. Maybe I’m beginning to believe my own story – that I want you, that somehow you’re mine.”

The boy was clinging to him, his fingers tangled in Jared’s hair. “I belong to you,” Jensen whispered. “I shouldn’t like the sound of that. It should make me angry, and I should wish to punish you, but it doesn’t; I don’t.”

Jared raised his head and looked into shining eyes. “No?”

Jensen shook his head. “No, I kind of like it.” The boy’s teeth dimpled his lower lip, and he looked away as though searching for what to say. “What do you want from me?”

Jared felt his breath catch in his throat. His mind warred with itself. “I want ... I want your touch. I want you.”

Jensen’s eyes narrowed for a moment. “You don’t want your freedom?”

It was too much to imagine. Surely the boy was toying with him, but how could he not answer truthfully. “Yes,” he admitted. “Yes, of course, I do, but ...”

“But what?”

“I want you too,” he said, and Jensen pulled him back down into a kiss, and he slipped his legs around Jared’s waist. When Jared felt the boy’s hard length against his belly, his own cock began to plump. Eager fingers tugged at Jared’s hair and dug into his ribs. This kiss was harder, more urgent, and Jared’s teeth grazed along the boy’s soft skin when their mouths moved apart.

“Fuck me,” Jensen gasped.

“Jen,” he murmured.

“Please, come on.” He arched up against Jared. “If I belong to you, then take me.”

Jared almost growled with desire. He pushed Jensen’s nightshirt up under his arms and sucked a nipple between his lips. Jensen made a small pleased sound and arched his back. Jared sucked the pebbled flesh into a hard nub and moved to the other. As he nibbled at delicate pink flesh, the boy writhed under him and gasped. A slave Jared might be, but he had power, he realized. This was a king lying beneath him begging to be fucked.

“Please, please,” Jensen moaned.

Jared’s cock was hard and aching. He wanted back into that crushing heat so badly. He’d never wanted anyone so much. He grabbed the oil from the bedside table and slicked his cock. Jensen already had his legs pulled up and back. His dick was flushed with arousal, and the puckered flesh of his hole was exposed. The muscle there was pulsing as though seeking to be filled. Jared was struck by a jolt of arousal so strong he had to grip the base of his cock to stave off climax. When the urge passed, he pushed a oiled finger into the furled hole to the first knuckle.

“Jared,” Jensen snapped. “Quit fooling around. I’m not a fucking virgin.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“I’m not a delicate flower either. Come on. I need you now.”

Jared pressed the head of his cock to the tight opening. There was a momentary wince of pain on Jensen’s face as Jared pushed in, and he paused.

“Keep going,” Jensen said.

Jared looked down at where the crown had disappeared, at the rim stretched taut around him where oil pooled as he pushed his length inside Jensen’s body. When he was balls deep in the boy, he paused again, overwhelmed by the molten press of flesh. Jensen’s eyes were shut, his lips parted. The shiny tip of his tongue flicked out over his top lip, and Jared leaned in, caught it with his lips and sucked it into his mouth. Jensen gasped and moaned. His fingers scrambled along Jared’s arms, and his heels dug into his back.

“Fuck me hard,” Jensen demanded. He held Jared’s gaze. “Remind me I’m alive.”

Jared sat up and put Jensen’s legs over his shoulders before pulling out and snapping his hips forward with enough force to make Jensen’s body slide up the mattress. He grabbed the boy’s hips to hold him in place before slamming in again and again. Jared knew he wouldn’t last long, but neither would Jensen who was stripping his cock like it had done him some wrong. A flush mottled the pale skin of the boy’s chest and throat, and his mouth opened in a silent cry as thick jets of cum erupted from his abused prick. Jensen’s body went rigid and a shout finally came from his throat as he fell back on the bed.

Jared pulled the boy’s now pliant body into his arms and continued to fuck into him but shallowly now with the boy straddling his lap. Jensen turned his head and sucked on the skin of Jared’s throat just above his collar. The tension was building low in Jared’s gut, and his balls were drawing up, and he crushed Jensen’s body against his as he spilled his seed deep into the boy’s channel. The slave claimed the king as his own. Maybe there was no physical mark, no collar, but they both knew.

Jared knelt there on the bed unwilling to put Jensen down as long as he clung to Jared. As his cock softened he felt his spent leaking out over his balls. Jensen slowly went limp in his arms. His head rested on Jared’s shoulder and his hands fell to his sides. Jared realized the boy was asleep and lay him down. He wet a cloth in the basin and cleaned them both up before straightening Jensen’s nightshirt and curling up around him.

He felt like he’d crossed some line. He hadn’t acted as a slave. He wasn’t just trying to please a capricious owner. He had wanted Jensen, and he’d taken him out of desire. There’d been no coercion unless begging counted. Jared smiled and kissed Jensen’s temple. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this development. There was still small part of him that thought of Jensen as a child. It made him wonder if there was something broken inside him that he could use this small body the way he had, but then he remembered how Jensen had used him that first night. This boy was not innocent. He knew why, and he wondered how many others Jensen had used.

Jared knew he’d changed, and Jensen was changing too. He’d changed him, and that felt like power. If he played his cards right, he maybe he could get an opportunity for escape or better yet get Jensen to free him. Much as he wanted to get back to his family and his people, to be on the plains under the open sky, he knew that every time he saw the sunlight through maple leaves or moss along a stream, he’d think of those green eyes full of want. He wondered if, when he laid with a woman, he’d miss these strong grasping hands, pleasured moans, and crushing heat.

He pushed his face into Jensen’s hair and breathed in his scent, memorized it in this moment – committed to memory the boy’s soft breathing, his strong, lean limbs, soft freckled skin. Whatever else happened, he had this, and he knew that memory was a powerful thing.

~~~

Jared sometimes felt like pinching himself. He was amazed nearly every day by the way things had changed, and nothing amazed him more than the open sky and the feel of a horse under him again.

It had started out the day after he returned to Jensen’s bed. The king had given him boots and led him to the stable. Jensen was dressed in simple leggings, a tunic and boots and had an aura of excitement about him. The stable boy had led out two mounts. One was clearly the king’s steed, and the other was a large but docile gelding. They were already saddled and the gelding was tethered to the kind’s horse.

“I thought you might like to ride with me,” Jensen said. He looked up almost shyly at Jared who smiled broadly in return.

“Yeah, I’d love that,” he said. He ran his hand over the horse’s gleaming flank before mounting.

They never got over a canter since the horses were tethered together, but it felt wonderful to feel the sun on his skin and feel the wind on his face. They left the palace grounds almost directly out of the city walls and into the countryside. Two guards trailed behind them.

They didn’t talk much, just about things they saw along the way. Jensen explained some of the local landmarks. Jared found himself smiling just at the joy of being alive, and he wanted to hug Jensen the moment they dismounted, but he waited until they were back in the king’s chamber. Of course, one hug led to kissing and they ended up with the maid finding them in bed at lunchtime.

They went riding almost every day after that – sometimes longer and sometimes shorter – but Jared was grateful. After a couple of weeks, he guards didn’t accompany them, and Jared didn’t question it. He enjoyed being able to get out of the confines of the palace, and simply breathe fresh air. Jensen seemed in better spirits as well although a heavy cloud would occasionally fall over him that he didn’t want to talk about. Jared wondered how much the boy still feared for his life. Sometimes at night he curled against Jared’s chest and shivered. Jared would stroke his hair and hold him tight, but they didn’t talk about it. Other times, he clung tightly to Jared as though he feared losing him.

So, Jared was startled the day that the horses weren’t tethered together. “I thought we’d let them run,” Jensen said. “We always have them reigned in don’t we? Let’s give them their head.”

The raced across the meadows, and Jared was surprised at Jensen’s skill as he headed up winding paths into the hills. They came to halt in a high field filled with tall grass and wildflowers. Jensen turned with a grin on his face.

“You’re still with me,” he said.

And Jared realized that he’d been given an opportunity to escape. He could have turned tail and run, and it hadn’t even occurred to him. He trotted his horse up close to Jensen’s, and rising in his saddle, he reached out, grabbed the boy and sent them both tumbling to the ground. He managed to twist so Jensen landed mostly on top of him, and they rolled in the grass as the horses wandered off grazing on sweet clover. They kissed and wrapped around one another.

“I don’t want to leave you that way, Jen,” he said when they paused for air.

The boy’s eyes were wet, but no tears fell. “Thank you.”

Weeks passed, and things seemed to calm down in the palace. Jensen was at once more relaxed and more serious. He talked sometimes about the difficulties with foreign trade and how the economy was shifting from reliance on agricultural exports to industrial and household goods. Jared wondered how in the gods’ names a boy that age could grasp ideas like that. Jensen was growing more confident as he learned more and exercised his power in ways that brought good results. But the only times he seemed truly happy were when they were out in the open fields and when they were huddled in bed.

Jared was concerned that first cool morning that held the promise of autumn. He wore a cloak against the chill, and Jensen was unusually solemn. The boy hadn’t given him more than one wan smile since they’d left the paddock. They rode hard a ways south until the walls of the city were blocked from view by low hills as the sun was approaching mid-morning. Jensen reined his mount in beside Jared’s and held a leather folio out to him.

“What’s this?” he asked as he accepted it.

“It’s your manumission papers,” Jensen said.

Jared’s heart thudded in his chest. It couldn’t be. “My what?”

“I’m freeing you,” Jensen said. He backed his horse away a few feet. “Tell your father that my troops won’t harass your people as long as they don’t come closer than the southern borderlands.”

“Jen …” Jared stared at the folio in his hand, and then looked up at Jensen’s tearful face. “I didn’t expect … Why?”

“It’s wrong, owning slaves. I see that now.”

“Just me won’t change anything, Jensen.”

“I can’t free all of you at once, but you’re a start.” Jensen shook his head. “Just go, Jared. Please.”

Jared turned his horse, but didn’t knee it on. At the sound of hooves, he looked over his shoulder to see Jensen riding away, head down, as fast as his steed could go. Jared took up the reigns and urged his horse to a trot and then a gallop. He was going home.

 

_Talk to me._


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jared, the son of a nomadic chieftain, is taken as a slave by the boy king of a ‘civilized’ nation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to thank my darling betas [meus_venator](http://meus-venator.livejournal.com/) and [anniespinkhouse](http://anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com/) for all their feedback and support. Any mistakes are mine.

 

Jared sat on a low rock outcropping a few hundred feet from camp. Below him the tents of his clan lay in a pale circle in the moonlight. The embers of a fire still glowed dimly in the center. He knew where all the sentries were and knew how to avoid them – had known that since he was twelve and would sneak out with his friend Barden to go swimming in the river.

He had known pretty well where to find the encampment. They’d set up here most summers since he was a child. There was fertile land to graze their animals in the nearby hills, and a low spot near the river to plant a few vegetables.

He wondered how many of his clan were not there because of Jensen’s troops. It was possible that a few had escaped and made it back to camp, but it was just as likely that he was the first. The others were dead or enslaved back in Deile. The small ember of hate that he still held for Jensen attempted to flare back into a flame, but he tamped it down knowing that Jensen wasn’t solely responsible for what had happened. He knew that he and Jensen were products of two cultures with opposing values and mores. It was as simple and complicated as that.

He waited as the stars tilted overhead for the sign, and not long after, a light flickered in a small tent off to one side of the circle. He knew he would find his father there alone. It was where the chieftain went to meditate or read when he couldn’t sleep and during the day it served as gathering spot for the elder men and women to confer and where disagreements within the clan were settled. Jared stood and stretched before making his way toward it. He kept to the shadows of the trees, but wasn’t really worried about being seen. Most folks were asleep, and the sentries were more for spotting wild animals or large raiding parties.

Jared slipped through the folds of the small tent, and kneeling there in meditation on a wolf skin was man with graying hair, but he was still lean and muscular for his years. He looked up in surprise and was on his feet in a moment.

“Jared,” he said and opened his arms. A broad smile, not unlike his own, split the man’s face.

“Father.” They embraced, and Jared felt his cheeks wet with tears. Garran, his father, his chieftain, held him out at arm’s length. “My gods, I thought … We didn’t know if you lived. We didn’t find you on the battlefield, but there was no word from the city. Nothing of execution …” His gaze swept over Jared as though looking for wounds or scars and fell on his chest, on the king’s brand. “By the ancestors, son … are you … have you escaped?”

“I’m fine, father, and I was freed by the king.”

“The king?” Garran stepped back and looked more closely at the intricate curls of the brand. “You belonged to the king?”

“Yes,” Jared said.

His father studied his face a moment without expression and then turned away. “A drink?”

“Yes, thanks,” Jared said.

Garran dropped to his knees and took down a wine sack from a hook on the main tent pole. He poured a measure of the dark liquid into two horn cups. Jared joined him on the wolf skin.

The chieftain raised his cup. “To your health, my son.”

“To yours, father.” They drank, and the wine was sweet and heavy. It brought back memories of nights by the fire or huddled together in tents for warmth during storms. Jared smiled.

“How is everyone? Mama and Vax and Siri?”

“They’re fine. They miss you. Vax and Barden went into the city looking for you, but …” The man shook head, and there were knew lines around his eyes and creases in his forehead that hadn’t been there in the spring. Jared hated that he’d added to them, that he might again. “We should wake them and celebrate – everyone.”

“No,” Jared said. “Not now. We need to talk.”

The smile slipped, and his father’s expression turned serious. “Yes, all right. What is it, Jared?”

“I just came to let you know that I’m fine, but I’m not staying, father.”

“What?” Garran exclaimed. He got to his feet and flipped back the tent flap to see if his outburst hand alerted anyone. He let if fall and turned back to Jared. “Why would you go? Where?”

“I would go back,” Jared said and rose to his feet.

Garran’s hands fisted at his sides. “What? Do you know how many we lost to the crown? Almost your entire party – either by their swords or to enslavement. I thought I’d lost you. I thought you dead, Jared.” His voice was low and tight.

Jared dropped his head a moment, but forced himself to meet his father’s eye. “I know. Believe me, I feel their loss too. I wanted to die, but I knew I didn’t deserve it for failing them.”

Garran huffed out a breath. “You didn’t fail them, son. You know that your party couldn’t stand a chance against the king’s troops. But why would you go back there? He freed you. I don’t know why, but he did. Consider yourself lucky. Vax and Barden heard a lot about King Jensen, about his cruelty.”

“No, father, he’s changed,” Jared said.

Garran’s mouth dropped open for a moment and then snapped shut. “What has he done to you? Why in gods’ names would you defend him? He enslaved you and so many others. He branded you, kept you like a dog … I’ve heard what he does with his slaves.”

“That’s of no consequence,” Jared said.

“Of no consequence?” Garran said quietly. “So it’s true, and you think it is all right?”

“No, it wasn’t all right, but it happened and it can’t be undone,” Jared said. “Father, I’m not the man who left here. I can’t claim that he didn’t change me, but I’ve changed him too – for the better. I need to see that through; otherwise, it will be for nothing.”

“No, Jared, he is evil.”

“He isn’t,” Jared said with vehemence. “You don’t understand. He’s a kid. His parents were murdered, and he was lied to and manipulated. There was no one he could trust, but he trusts me, father. You’re right, he didn’t have to free me, but he did because he’s beginning to realize that owning slaves is wrong. Look, Vaxon will make a great chieftain one day. You don’t need me, but Jensen does. I can help free thousands of slaves.”

Garran frowned and ran a hand through his hair in vexation. “Jared, he branded you. Are you sure he won’t enslave you again?”

“Yes, quite sure.” Jared saw skepticism in his father’s eyes. “Do you remember when you bought Foxfire, and he was so skittish you figured he’d been mistreated. It took weeks of working with him before he’d let you ride him, and months before he was a good mount?”

Garran smiled at the thought of the beautiful appaloosa he’d ridden for years. He nodded. “Best horse I ever had once he quit trying to throw me.”

Jared nodded. “That’s what Jensen was like when I met him. Distrustful and defensive. His cruelty wasn’t innate. He was protecting himself. Yes, he’s done some harsh things, but he’s not a terrible person.”

Garran looked at the brand again. “That had to have hurt.”

“Yes, he hurt me. He was cruel to me at first, but he’s different now. He respects me and trusts me.”

“And why did he let you go?”

“Because …” Jared chewed his lip. “Because he loves me, I think.”

Something changed in his father’s expression then. Resistance gave way to thoughtfulness. “That doesn’t necessarily translate into freeing all the other slaves, Jared.”

“No, not yet it doesn’t,” he said. He ran his fingers through his hair. “But he indicated to me that it was his intention, and I believe that it is. The thing is, there are still people there who would oppose him, harm him even. He will need someone who is on his side.”

“Jared, you will never be accepted in the royal court.”

“I don’t have to be. I just need to be there to counsel and support him. I can work behind the scenes,” Jared said.

“How will you get back in?” Garran asked. “If there are those working against him, they will try to keep you from him.”

Jared nodded. “I know. I’ve been thinking about that. I think I know someone who can get me in.”

Garran sank back onto the wolf skin and motioned for Jared to sit. He poured more wine and handed a cup to Jared.

“I’m not going to pretend that this is easy, son. The hardest thing I will ever do is let you walk out of here knowing where you intend to go.” He sighed and then squared his shoulders and raised his cup. “I admire you. It’s a brave thing you do. Noble.”

Jared’s chest tightened and tears came to his eyes. “Thank you, father. I’m glad you understand. I wish I could stay, but I know that if I did, I would feel a coward.”

Garran smiled. “You’ve never been a coward, son.”

~~~

Coward he may not be, but Jared wondered just how smart he was as he approached the walls of Deile. He’d purchased leggings and a tunic at a village some ways back and tied his hair back so that he would better go unnoticed in the city. The tunic affectively covered his brand. For all appearances, he was a free man, but he carried his manumission papers just in case.

From the moment Jared passed through the city gates, his body all but thrummed with tension. On the best of days, Jared was not fond of cities, and this was not the best of days. He understood the kind of risk he was taking in trying to get back to Jensen. I must be crazy, he thought, or some kind of martyr, delusional at best. But he took a deep breath and straightened in the saddle. Just stay on task, he reminded himself.

The first goal was to find the man. There had been two possibilities as to who might help get him back into the palace – Morgan or Misha. Both men knew that he had saved the king’s life, but that didn’t mean they’d trust him with Jensen’s life again or that he could trust them. He had to decide who would be more likely to help him and who would be easiest to make contact with. He’d decided his best bet was Misha who had talked about a pub he frequented and who was, well, as he put it himself, pragmatic.

Jared was relieved to only have to watch the pub for three-quarters of an hour before he saw the dark haired barber enter. He waited another quarter of an hour before following. He went to the bar, observing where the barber was seated as he passed through the bustling room, and ordered an ale. He weaved his way through the tables so that he could arrive at Misha’s table from the side.

“Misha,” he said as he pulled out a chair and sat beside the barber who looked up with surprise, which quickly turned to mirth.

“Barbarian,” he said, “I’ve never seen you so fully clothed.”

Jared chuckled. “No, I suppose you haven’t.”

“Just here having an ale, are you? When the king told me that he’d freed you, I expected you had gone back to your roving band of shepherds.”

“I did for a visit,” Jared said and took a long drink of ale. He was nervous, terribly so. There was so much riding on this conversation, on getting the barber to aid him. “But, tell me, how is the king?”

“There have been no more attempts on his life, if that’s what you’re asking,” Misha said and cocked an eyebrow at him.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said, and he was. It was something that had been nagging at the back of his mind since he’d left Deile. “But, no, I was wondering, I guess …”

“If he misses you?” Misha asked with a smirk.

“Yes, I suppose so,” Jared said and felt his face flush.

“He has been unusually cranky,” Misha said. Jared looked up in alarm, knowing how Jensen was capable acting out when he was upset. “Oh, he hasn’t run through any nobles with his sword or tortured some unfortunate barber who suggested that he might get another slave, but he’s been … unpleasant one might say.”

Jared nodded, secretly pleased somehow that the king missed him. It confirmed for him that he wasn’t just another slave to be used and discarded.

“But why should you care?” Misha asked.

“Because I do, I care,” Jared said. Misha was watching him.

The barber’s brows pulled together and his eyes narrowed. “Are you about to do something stupid?” he asked.

Jared smiled. “If I do, it’s because of you. It’s because I’ve begun to believe the story I told myself.”

“Which was?”

“That I want him.”

Misha’s eyebrows flew up and he leaned back in his seat. “Indeed?”

“Misha, the night the assassins broke in. I fought them with him because it is natural to preserve one’s life. They would have killed me as a witness as well, yes?” The barber nodded, and Jared continued. “But when I saw that he had been poisoned, it didn’t even occur to me to let him die. I could have. It was the perfect opportunity for escape, but all I could think was to save him.”

Misha nodded and leaned forward. “I wondered at that. You couldn’t have raised the alarm and escaped. There were only two options, and I didn’t understand why you chose the way you did. But I don’t believe you wish to be his slave again.”

“I’m not his slave. He freed me.”

Misha tipped his head questioningly. “No, this doesn’t add up.”

Jared leaned forward as well. Their heads nearly touched over the small table. “There’s something else, Misha.” Jared bit his lip. What he was about to say was risky. Misha could be sympathetic or he could cause a world of trouble for Jensen. “I’m … I want to trust you, but …”

“Do you have another choice?”

Jared shook his head and pitched his voice low when he spoke. “Jensen indicated to me that he wants to end slavery.”

He heard the sharp intake of breath from the other man. “I think we need something a little stronger to drink. Perhaps we should retire to my rooms.” He leaned back and raised his brows.

“Yes, I could use something a little stronger myself.”

~~~

Jared stood in Misha’s workroom stripped down to nothing more than a wrap. His arms were bound before him and his ankles hobbled. He took a deep breath to try to calm himself.

“Guards,” Misha called. “Take this slave to the king’s chamber and secure him.” Just Jared’s luck, it was the guards who had originally taken him to the Jensen’s room.

“What? ‘im agin? I thought ‘e was gone?” said the leering one.

“Clearly he’s back,” Misha said. “And he better not have an accident on the way. The king would be very upset if he wore any injuries that he didn’t put there himself.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the guard grumbled.

“Shut up, you,” the older, smarter one said.

They each grabbed an arm and dragged Jared through the halls to the now familiar door leading to Jensen’s chamber. Once inside he was chained at the foot of the bed and the hobbles were removed. He was shoved to his knees as before.

“King must ‘ave really liked your pretty ass,” the leerer commented. “Heh? Or maybe it was your mouth, huh? You like sucking that boy’s cock, did ya?”

“Shut it, stupid,” the other guard said. “He must like him or he’d be dead now. Come on. We got other things to do than harass a slave.”

A slave. Jared realized that if it wasn’t common knowledge that he’d been freed, most everyone would still think him a slave. Misha held his manumission papers. He was now at the mercy of the king and his barber.

He sat back on his heels and let his head drop between his knees. What had he done? What if freeing the nation’s slaves had been a passing whim for the king? What if he would be perfectly content to have Jared back as nothing more than his slave? No, Jared thought, it wasn’t like that. He was sure, he couldn’t have been that wrong about Jensen.

He knelt there some time until his knees and shoulders began to ache and the light began to dim with the fading dusk. Finally, he heard footsteps in the hall. More than one person, he thought as the door began to open.

“Dismissed,” Jensen said from the corridor.

“Sire …” Morgan said.

“Dis-missed,” Jensen repeated.

“Your Majesty, I must protest. I should check your room,” the general said.

“If you don’t understand the common tongue, then perhaps you understand, fuck off, general.” The door slammed shut and boot heels fell heavily on the stone floor. “By the gods, nosey, overbearing …” Jensen’s tirade stopped as did the sound of his steps. “What the … Jared?”

Jared raised his head, and the boy rushed across the room. Falling to his knees in front of Jared, he pulled him into a sitting position and pushed the hair back from his face.

“Were you captured?” Jensen asked. His eyes were wide and wet with tears. “Who brought you here? Are you hurt?”

“No, no, Jen,” he soothed. He hadn’t thought of this. It hadn’t occurred to him that Jensen would think he’d been brought against his will. It was all just a ruse to get him inside without blowing the whole deal. “I came back of my own free will. Misha helped me.”

“I don’t understand,” the boy said. He slumped back against the bed. “Why?”

“Will you release me, and we can talk?” Jared asked.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Jensen got the key and released the shackles from Jared’s wrists, which Jared rubbed to get the circulation back comfortably.

“Do you think I could have some wine?” he asked.

As Jensen went to the side table and poured a glass, Jared got to his feet and moved to the edge of the bed. He scooted back onto it as Jensen brought him the wine. Jensen stopped short of the bed and cocked his head.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Jared reached out for a glass of wine, and Jensen handed it to him. “Two things,” Jared said. “Please, sit down, Jen.”

Jensen sat on the edge of a straight-back chair near the bed, and Jared sighed.

“First, I want to be with you,” Jared said. “Second, the last time we spoke, you suggested that you wanted to free all the slaves. Do you still feel that way?”

Jensen nodded.

“I want to help you do that any way I can,” Jared said. “I know that it isn’t something that can happen over night. It could take years, decades maybe, to change something like that, but I know that it can be done. It needs to be done. Listen, everyone called me a spoiled pet when I was your slave, but there are people out there who are being tortured, who are being worked to death while I slept on fine linen and drank wine and ate meat at every meal. They need to be freed. We could do that together, Jensen. I want to help you.”

Jensen stood and took a step toward him. “You want to be with me?” he asked almost as though he hadn’t heard anything Jared had been saying.

Jared set his wine glass down and reached out to him. “Yes. Did you miss me, Jen?”

Jensen surged forward and shoved Jared back onto the bed as the full weight of the boy came down on him. It knocked the air from Jared’s lungs, and he couldn’t get it back with Jensen’s mouth sealed over his. But he didn’t care as the slick twist of Jensen’s tongue did battle with his, and then the boy pulled away with a sob and buried his face against Jared’s neck. Jensen’s body shook in his arms until his tears subsided. Jared held him and stroked his hair.

“I thought I was doing the right thing, but it was … I hated it, you not being here. Yes, I missed you. But it was right, wasn’t it?” Jensen pushed himself up on his elbows and looked down at Jared. “I did the right thing, and you came back.”

“It would have been the right thing even if I hadn’t,” Jared said.

“Yeah, but you did,” Jensen said. “I didn’t have to hold onto you. So, even if we free the slaves, it doesn’t mean that the result will be bad. It might be good. Some of them might stay, not as slaves but as citizens. Either way, it’s the right thing to do.”

“Yes, either way, Jen.”

Jensen slid off of him and sat cross-legged on the bed. “But, Jared, there’s no moral to this story. I enslaved you. That’s what started all this, and that was wrong. Still, something good is coming from it. You’re here, and I don’t deserve you.”

Jared sat up. “No, Jen, when you enslaved me, you didn’t understand that it was wrong, not the way you do now. If you did it now – no good could come from that. You know in your heart that slavery is immoral, evil, and it could only bring you misfortune. You’ve changed, and you can change your country. You can make them see as you do.”

“That won’t be easy, Jared. If there were those who wanted me dead before …”

“I know, but I’ll be right here with you,” Jared said. He covered Jensen’s hand with his. “They’ll have to go through me to get to you.”

“You would risk your life for me?” Jensen smiled.

Jared nodded. “We can change the world … this part of it anyway. You can make your parents proud, and there will be a place for you with your ancestors when you die a long, long time from now.”

Jensen crawled onto Jared’s lap and kissed him again.

 

_Talk to me._


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jared, the son of a nomadic chieftain, is taken as a slave by the boy king of a ‘civilized’ nation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to thank my darling betas [meus_venator](http://meus-venator.livejournal.com/) and [anniespinkhouse](http://anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com/) for all their feedback and support. Any mistakes are mine.

 

**_Five years later …_ **

Jensen pulled the thin blanket up to his waist. He didn’t need it for warmth, but unlike Jared, he wasn’t accustomed to being naked in the great outdoors. He was used to being fully clothed, battle ready, not exposed and vulnerable when outside the palace – but everything was different. He wasn’t on a military campaign with his troops. It was just him and Jared. They were lying on their backs looking up at the night sky. Soft fur tickled Jensen’s back and legs, and a warm breeze blew across his chest and face. He tried to relax.

“That there,” Jared said. Jensen could see him pointing to row of stars above and slightly to their right. His arm was visible only by the embers of their camp fire and the way it blocked out stars in the sky.

Jensen was having a hard time concentrating with Jared’s warm side pressed against his. There was a nervous vibration at Jensen’s core, and his skin felt over-sensitized. He needed something.

“That’s Stygg, the hunter.” Jared’s arm moved up and over, tracing the lines of familiar constellations. “That’s his spear, and that,” – his arm swept to the left – “that is Mrrqet, the boar god, whom he slays to rescue, Psheffet and, Jen, are you listening to me?” he asked as Jensen rolled on his side and threw a leg over Jared’s hips.

“Mm-hmm,” Jensen nuzzled the side of Jared’s neck and pressed his erection against Jared’s hip. He was sort of listening, but the solid familiarity of Jared’s body was distracting.

Jared chuckled. “What did I say?”

“The hunter killed a pig to get the girl,” Jensen murmured and laved his tongue up Jared’s neck, kissed that tender spot under Jared’s ear that made his man squirm. Jared got an arm around Jensen and pulled him on top of him. Jared couldn’t manhandle him the way he once had, but he still tried. From the moment Jared had returned to him, they’d played a dominance game. The bigger and stronger Jensen got, the more fun it was. He might never get as tall as Jared, but he wasn’t a boy anymore. He could hold his own.

Jensen grabbed Jared’s wrists and pinned his hands above his head. He crushed his mouth against Jared’s, sucked his tongue into his mouth until Jared moaned. He might still be bigger, but Jensen knew how to take control of his barbarian. His cock twitched, and he rolled his hips, rubbing his cock against Jared’s hard length.

“Mm, fuck me, Jen,” Jared whispered. He spread his legs, letting Jensen slide between them.

“We could just …” He rolled his hips again. Precum was slicking their bellies, making the slip, slide of their dicks just about perfect. Jensen wanted more, but he could live with this.

“No,” Jared said, “want you inside me.”

Jensen suspected Jared knew how much he needed it, how filled with apprehension he was. Jared always knew what he needed. He rose up and gathered more precum from their skin, rubbed it over his length. Jared’s already had his knees apart and back. This had become so familiar for them, so natural that Jensen didn’t need light to know where their bodies joined. He was there at the entrance and inside without guidance. He sank into Jared’s body with a moan, and Jared pulled him closer, deeper.

They were almost silent in their lovemaking under that stars. Jared’s hands caressed him and his mouth moved over Jensen’s throat and shoulders. Jared’s hips moved up to meet him with every thrust, urging him on, and this, sinking in, becoming a part of Jared’s body, was home for Jensen. It reassured him of the one safe place, his only refuge, this man.

Jensen moved slow and deep, drawing it out. They had all night, and he didn’t want to rush. Jared’s mouth seemed to be everywhere – licking the shell of his ear and kissing his neck and shoulders. And his hands too mapped Jensen’s body – caressing and stroking his arms and back, moving along his ribs, almost tickling. Jared’s heels pressed into Jensen’s back in sharp counterpoint to his gentle hands.

The tension was building in Jensen. His body began to shake, and his fingers fisted in Jared’s hair. He tried to hold back as his hips snapped forward. He didn’t want to hurt his lover – never again. He’d sworn to himself. Jared’s heels dug in more with bruising pressure, and his fingers gripped Jensen’s arms.

“Come on, Jen,” he moaned. “Harder.”

Jensen heard a sound like a growl erupt from his throat, and he let go like an arrow from bow string. They moved like a wild horses racing across open fields, and it was Jensen with all that pressure shooting up his spine and erupting in his gut, shooting like liquid fire into Jared, who reached the finish line first. He came with a cry loud enough to momentarily silence the crickets and tree frogs. He pushed deep into Jared’s body and rutted shallowly against Jared’s prostate. He sensed movement as Jared stroked his own cock, and he pressed the head against Jensen’s belly as he came. He was anointed with stripes of hot slick. Jared grunted. Jensen smiled, knowing without seeing that Jared was biting his lip to hold back the louder sounds of his pleasure.

With the glow of his orgasm, the anxiety was draining from Jensen, and he felt boneless. As he started to slump forward, Jared rose up and rolled them. He knelt between Jensen’s legs and licked his own cum from Jensen’s skin. He kissed his way up Jensen’s chest to his lips, and Jensen licked Jared’s taste from his mouth.

“Feel better?” Jared asked as he rested on his elbows. Their bodies were pressed together chest to groin.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jensen said.

“Jen.”

“Yeah, yes, I .... They’re going to hate me,” he finally said. It had been there between them all day – Jensen’s unspoken fear. After five years, Jared was going back to see his family, his clan, and he wanted Jensen to go with him. It was important to Jared, and Jensen couldn’t deny him. They’d set up interference through Misha and Morgan, a ruse that the king had a nonfatal but highly contagious illness, and they’d snuck away.

“They aren’t going to hate you,” Jared said as he slid onto his side next to Jensen who struggled to sit up.

“They are,” Jensen insisted. “I enslaved you, branded you. I’ve kept you from them – their son, brother, their future chieftain. I stole you. By the gods, Jared, how could they not hate me?”

Jared sat up and reached out to him. His hand rested on the back of Jensen’s neck. “No, Jen, I love you, and they will love you too. I’ve written my father numerous times. He understands why I’m with you and what we’ve accomplished. You aren’t that boy anymore. I thought we’d left that behind a long time ago.”

“So did I,” Jensen admitted. He thought he had. He thought he’d forgiven himself for what he’d done to Jared all those years ago, but this trip to meet Jared’s people had dredged it all up again – the memories of the rage and guilt and fear. “I can’t imagine what I’d be without you.”

The hand on his neck urged him forward, and Jared’s lips met his in soft comfort. “We’re both better for knowing each other, Jen.”

Jensen shook his head. “No, it isn’t the same. You’d be great leader even if we’d never met, but me ... When I look at where I was headed, Jared, it’s horrifying and shameful and ...”

“Jen, Jen, stop it.” He pressed their foreheads together. “You’re feeling uncomfortable because you’ve left the world that you’re in control of, and that’s natural. I understand, you know. I’ve been in your world a long time. We’re going to mine, and you have to let me be in control now. You know I’ll take care of you, right?”

Jensen smiled. He felt a little foolish. “Is that all this is? I just feel out of control?”

“Isn’t it? You trust me, don’t you?”

Jensen let his head fall to Jared’s shoulder. “You know I do.”

“You have to quit beating yourself up about the past. You were a kid. You were hurt and betrayed, under threat. You have come so far, and you are leading your people to justice, Jen, to equality. You aren’t done, and I know it’s frustrating. We have a long way to go still, but ... just believe me when I tell you that you are a great man, a great leader.”

“Jared.” It was too much. Jensen couldn’t accept the praise that easily. Yes, many had been freed, but the old ways were hard for people to give up, and pockets of rebellion still popped up. Nobles still plotted against him. Emancipation for all slaves was still contested, and Jensen fought to balance the iron rule of his will with will of the people.

“I’m proud to serve you,” Jared whispered against his neck. “My King.”

Tears stung Jensen’s eyes, and he sucked air in through his teeth before letting the breath out with a shaky chuckle. “You know how that turns me on.”

Jared threw his head back and laughed. “Oh by the gods, Jen.” He pulled Jensen against his chest. “To be twenty-one again.”

“It’s not my age,” Jensen protested. “It’s you, barbarian.”

Jared lay back on the fur and pulled Jensen down with him. “Hmm, still barbarian, huh?”

“Mm-hmm, always,” Jensen said and settled against Jared’s side.

Jared kissed his temple. “And you’ll always be my boy, Jen.”

_The End._


End file.
